


never fallen (from quite this high)

by crystalcrow



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Andrew Minyard, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 158,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28437807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalcrow/pseuds/crystalcrow
Summary: For most people, a problem is a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful that needs to be dealt with or overcome.For Andrew Minyard, it’s the word that fits Neil Josten with a capital P.(or, aftg from andrew’s pov)
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 350
Kudos: 411





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi, welcome to what i’ve been working on for the last six months. a few quick things: 
> 
> \- i will add trigger and content warnings in the beginning notes of chapters that require them.
> 
> \- this fic is already done and finished, but i won’t post the whole thing at once and instead post one chapter every day (apart from today and when i feel like it). 
> 
> \- also a big thank you to evie, lee and taylor for proof reading this entire thing chapter for chapter, for giving me their honest thoughts and kicking my ass when i needed it. 
> 
> that’s it, please enjoy!

Andrew Minyard takes a drag of his cigarette and pretends that he can’t feel the stare that’s leveled at the side of his face like a physical touch. It leaves a spark of anger burning hot inside his gut; it’s there and then gone a second later, washed away by the amusement that surrounds him like another layer of skin. The sweet, burning sensation of the acrid smoke curling through his throat and lungs rips its way down and then up until it joins the fog clouding his mind and he tilts his head back against the familiar feeling. 

There are a few stars visible in the dark sky and if Andrew were anyone else in the company of anyone else, he might’ve pointed to the constellations he immediately recognizes. Now, he feels the corners of his mouth curl up into a smile that is as wrong as the cards fate deals to some people and exhales. The smoke twirls in the air, to the left and then to the right in circles; the slight breeze makes it waltz before it disappears. The acrid smell will sip into his clothes and stay, and there is something that’s amusing about it. 

There’s a huff coming from his side and Andrew’s smile grows bigger at the sound, and at the annoyance thick in the air. “Can we go inside now?” 

Andrew can still see it as if it happened yesterday, his memory as reliable and devastatingly perfect as it had always been. Kevin Day, star of the Exy world and son of it’s inventor Kayleigh Day, born superstar from head to toe, standing on the Palmetto campus, broken hand clutched to his chest. A Raven with a broken wing held to its body in a gesture of protection, almost.

He looks at him now as he takes another drag, the bird that had fallen out from its nest and was left to die so far away from West Virginia and Castle Evermore (a bird he had picked up reluctantly and put in his den next to his brother and cousin), standing to Andrew’s right with his arms crossed and the tip of his right foot tapping onto the floor impatiently. 

“Can we?” Andrew asks and mimes shock as he let’s his eyes go wide before he blows the smoke directly in Kevin’s face. “I don’t think so.” 

“And —” Kevin manages to say before he starts coughing. 

Andrew lets out a snort, flicks the butt of his cigarette away and shoves open the door leading into the lounge before he looks back. “C’mon, slowpoke, we’re going to be late to our important appointment!” 

Eventually, Kevin stops coughing like the pathetic old man he reminds Andrew of sometimes and enters the lounge. There are frames on the walls, filled with pictures of the Millport Exy team and Andrew stops in front of one. His thoughts buzz around his head like the incredible unfortunate mix of a simple bee and a hummingbird.

“Annoying,” he says, pointing at someone on the picture and doesn’t look before he continues, “annoying, boring, annoying, boring, annoying, boring, annoying--” his finger runs over the frame and he turns until he points at Kevin, “ugly.” 

Kevin doesn’t say anything but he does roll his eyes towards the ceiling and spins around to approach one of the locker rooms. He motions over his shoulder to follow but Andrew doesn’t recall ever being a dog and following anyone’s command, so he doesn’t. 

“Annoying, obtuse, idiot, dull, annoying, boring.” He continues to point at the people standing in the pictures and doesn’t put enough effort into it to look at them. “Boring, annoying, stupid--”

Andrew stops when he hears a loud noise from the locker room Kevin has disappeared into and his hands find his empty bands, a motion so familiar that his hands seek them out without a thought. It takes another second for Andrew to recognize the sound as a locker being opened and he lets his hands drop down to his sides. 

“Kevin Day, Kevin Hay, Kevin May, Kevin Lay, Kevin Tray, Kevin Fe--Oh!” Andrew touches his chest with one hand when Kevin walks back into the lounge, his hands wrapped around a bright yellow racquet. “Did you bring me a souvenir?” 

“Did I -- No, it’s not --”

“You shouldn’t have,” Andrew says and easily pulls the long stick out of Kevin’s unresisting hands, suddenly bored with waiting for Kevin to find the right words. He shoves his fingers into the net and then tugs at it a few times; not hard enough to rip a hole into it, but hard enough to stretch the material. 

“Andrew--”

“Careful, Kevin.” There’s fire running through his veins, anger spreading through his body like poison and darkening his mood at the sound of his own name and he taps Kevin’s chest with the top of the racquet, shoving him back one step without much force. “You could hurt someone with this thing, you know?”

He watches as Kevin throws up his hands and then retreats to the entertainment center. It doesn’t take long for him to push the TV off to one side and cover the space with papers. Kevin holds up one of the endless papers after a minute in a silent command. 

Andrew turns away and gives the net another hard tug, feeling one of the bands rip under his fingers without making a sound. He ignores Kevin’s long suffering sigh and tugs one of his armbands back into place. 

And then--footsteps. Shoes hit the floor loud, they slap down hard on the ground and get louder fast as they approach. Too fast for Andrew’s liking (Andrew remembers, and he remembers doesn’t he, through the clouds in his mind, Wymack and Kevin talking about this person--about Neil Josten. “Fast,” Wymack had muttered).

From his position diagonal to the door, he can see a figure entering the locker room and swiftly pushing for the exit without looking up from the floor. 

Andrew lifts the racquet in his hands as the person -- Neil Josten -- enters the lounge and it looks like he’s trying to make a fast exit, it looks like he’s trying to run away and they can’t have that, now can they? So Andrew grips the racquet a little tighter, and swings it in an attempt to stop the runner. The wood makes contact with Josten’s gut and he crumbles to the floor like a chair folded in half, manages to catch himself on his hands as he lets out a noise that oddly reminds Andrew of a balloon with the smallest of holes in it. . 

“God damn it, Minyard.” Wymack sounds furious, even through the fog in Andrew’s head and he looks up as the man enters the lounge. He barely resists the urge to hold up one of his hands and wiggle his fingers. “This is why we can’t have nice things.” 

“Oh, Coach,” Andrew says and looks down at Josten’s wheezing form. “If he was nice, he wouldn’t be any use to us, would he?” 

“He’s no use to us if you break him.” 

There’s a memory swimming at the corner of his consciousness, of Wymack saying something very similar the evening before Andrew went to Columbia with one of the Foxes. Bonding, he had called it and had swallowed the truth because that wouldn’t have been of any use to either of them at the time. Josten makes another wheezing sound and Andrew blinks away the memory. 

“You’d rather I let him go? Put a band-aid on him and he’ll be good as new.”

Josten inhales sharply on the ground, chokes and promptly starts coughing. He wraps one arm around his middle when he does and Andrew pulls out one of the sticky, sweet cough drops that he had successfully taken out of Wymack’s pocket at the airport out of his pocket. Wymack sends him a half hearted glare and Andrew puts it into his own mouth as Josten slowly looks up. 

_Oh_ , Andrew thinks when he gets a good look at Neil Josten’s face; a face that’s sharp and framed by equally dark brown hair, with a full mouth pulled into a frown and brown eyes glaring up. Something moves inside of Andrew, something hot like wood that crackles under a fire and it’s not for longer than a second but long enough that Andrew can identify it without any issues and decide that he doesn’t like this at all.. _Oh_ , Andrew thinks again with amusement shimmering under his skin as he taps two fingers to his temple in salute, _this is a problem_. “Better luck next time.” 

“Fuck you,” Josten says, and then his eyes slip down. “Whose racquet did you steal?” 

“Borrow.” Andrew says, not mentioning that it was Kevin who took it and tosses it at Josten when the weight of it starts to bug him. “Here you go.” 

There’s another man entering the lounge behind Wymack, a man that Andrew puts a name onto as he remembers Wymack saying it into his phone after they had stepped out of the airport and into the fresh air of Arizona. Coach Hernendez takes one look around and then hurries to Josten’s side. “Neil,” he says and catches Josten’s arm in his big hand to help him up. “Jesus, are you alright?”

“Andrew’s a bit raw on manners,” Wymack says and, before Andrew has a chance to interject (he didn’t hit hard enough or with enough force to break any bones, there was no reason for him to want to), comes around to stand between his potentially new player and Andrew. Andrew throws his hands up and lifts his shoulders high into a shrug; it’s not like he didn’t help them. Wymack looks Josten over. “He break anything?” 

There is something about the way Josten presses his hands carefully into his ribs and breathes, about the way he glances at the entrance behind Andrew, that makes Andrew want to put him under a microscope and exhamine. He’s not opposed to throwing a dart in his face to see what happens, either. 

“I’m fine. Coach, I’m leaving. Let me go.” 

“We’re not done,” Wymack says. 

“Coach Wymack,” Hernandez starts but Wymack doesn’t let him finish. 

“Give us a second?” 

Hernandez looks from Wymack to Josten, who has his shoulders squared and a glare on his face. “I’ll be right out back.” There’s a rattle as he kicks the door prop out of its spot and the back door swings closed with an antagonizing creak. 

Andrew leans against the wall near the photo wall and he starts naming them in his head (“boring, annoying, boring, annoying”), as the door clicks shut and Josten speaks again. 

“I already gave you my answer. I won’t sign with you.” 

“You didn’t listen to my whole offer,” Wymack says. “If I paid to fly three people out here to see you the least you could do is give me five minutes of your time, don’t you think?” 

There’s the sound of a shoe hitting the floor and Andrew looks up and trails off in the middle of saying annoying in his head. Josten’s face is pale and he wraps one hand around it’s strap as he says, “you didn’t bring him here.” 

And isn’t that interesting? Josten looks like he’s about to start running again, his eyes are wide and a muscle in his jaw jumps and Andrew’s mind is like a beach, the fog clouding his mind going back and forth and, not for the first time, he hates his medication for making his attention drift. He’s so focused on the way Josten leans back that he almost misses Wymack’s next words. 

“Is that a problem?” 

That is the question, isn’t it? From the way Josten looks like a deer caught in headlights, to the tension in his shoulders and all the way to his feet, the answer is an obvious yes to Andrew. 

“I’m not good enough to play on the same court as a champion,” is what he says instead and Andrew feels his curiosity bubble and sour over in the next second, into something hot and dangerous but still soothed by the medication running through his body. 

Kevin looks up from where he’s still sitting next to the TV. “True, but irrelevant.” 

Josten’s eyes get wider for a split second, and Andrew runs his tongue over his teeth to get rid of the sticky sweetness of the cough drop. It’s with no effort that he recalls what Kevin and Wymack had talked about on the plane, quiet but not quiet enough for the turbines, the other travelers and Andrew’s quickened pulse to drown them out. Neil Josten had only been playing Exy for a year, a little clumsy on his legs and like a newborn trying to learn. Nothing special, and yet Kevin and Wymack both saw something in him. 

It would bore Andrew to no end, and his attention would flicker away instantly to latch on to something more exciting, more fun, but he still sees Josten eye the exit and his own eyes stay on him. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Why were you leaving?” Kevin asks and, really, that’s one way to ask someone why they wanted to run away, isn’t it?

“I asked you first.” 

“Coach already answered that question,” Kevin says, impatience painting his words a stingy yellow. “We are waiting for you to sign the contract. Stop wasting our time.” 

“We saw their files,” Wymack chimes in from where he’s still standing between Andrew and Josten, as if he’s still not sure Andrew won’t attack their potentially new player. Smart move. “We chose you.”

“I won’t play with Kevin.” 

Wymack shrugs at him and they start to talk about Josten’s file and Andrew looks at the ceiling. It’s a dull, dirty beige with cracks there and there and spider webs and dust decorate it. It looks like something you’d be able to buy in a Halloween shop and Andrew has the urge to throw one of the knives hidden in his bedroom in South Carolina and throw it with enough force to make it stick. His fingers itch for a cigarette. 

“I’ll talk to her tonight,” Josten says when Andrew tunes back in and there’s that look on his face again; a deer caught in headlights. His dark eyes look over Wymacks shoulder to the entrance and avoiding Kevin completely and Andrew really, really isn’t a fan of this at all.

“We can give you a lift home.” 

“I’m fine,” Josten instantly replies and Andrew is glad. He wouldn’t have been able to promise not to scare him with how he looked at Kevin. The look is right there, at the back of his mind and it makes Andrew want to find one of Josten’s open wounds. It makes him want to push and pull at it. 

Wymack looks at Andrew for a split second and then at Kevin when he says, “Go wait in the car.” 

Kevin shoots Andrew a look before he gathers his files, as if he expects Andrew to help him and Andrew wants to laugh, feels it bubble up inside of him and threatening to make it’s way out. Andrew turns away without another word and waits for Kevin to catch up and follows him out of the room. 

The air outside is cool, not cool enough to prompt for a jacket and Andrew resists the urge to pull out his cigarettes and obediently gets into the car after Kevin. He scoots into the middle for a second and then settles behind Kevin. His fingers start playing with the button that pushes the window up and down as soon as the key is in the ignition. 

“What do you think?” 

“Oh, Kevin,” Andrew says. He pushes the window down halfway and then back up, already bored with the direction this conversation is heading into -- which is the direction every conversation with Kevin is leading into. Down, up, down, up. “Can’t you see that I’m way too busy to indulge your pointless question about this obsession of yours?” 

“His graduation ceremony is May eleventh,” Kevin continues and Andrew wishes there was a squeaking sound accompanying the raising and lowering of the glass between him and the outside world. “If Neil signs and everything goes according to plan, we could have him at Upstate Regional Airport on Friday the twelfth.” 

Andrew pulls out another one of the sweet cough drops, doesn’t stop playing with the window as he unwraps it and shoves it into his mouth. “I wasn’t aware that you are hard of hearing.” 

Kevin huffs, pulls out his files again and then shuts up. 

The window loses its appeal and Andrew pulls out Wymack’s lighter. He clicks it on and off, his thoughts racing in his head, already miles away in the airport and it takes him all to not let his foot twitch. 

“Stop that,” Kevin says and tries to hand him one of the files, apparently not having learned a single thing, only to snatch it back and cradle it protectively when Andrew almost manages to set it on fire. 

Wymack walks out of the building with Hernandez in tow and Kevin gets out of the front seat, Andrew following suit. He doesn’t pay attention to what they say, catches a “Neil’s a good kid” anyway and wants to smoke through all of his cigarettes. 

They quickly pile back into the car, Wymack and Hernandez in the front and Kevin in the back, when the door gets pushed open again and Neil Josten walks out. The ratty duffel bag slung over his shoulder bangs against his hip and the haunted look in his eyes screams trouble and--

\--and Andrew knows a problem when he sees one. 

He holds the door of the SUV and ignores Kevin’s stare to send a knowing, taunting smile at Josten when he passes by them. “Too good to play with us, too good to ride with us?” 

Josten doesn’t reply, just flicks him a cool look out of dark eyes and speeds up to a jog. 

Wymack barks at him to get into the car and to stop letting in the cool air and Andrew throws a cheerful “aye, aye, cap’n!” at him before he gets in and closes the door. He throws one look at Jostens quickly retreating form, blurry and getting smaller by the second, and can feel the smile pulling at his lips getting bigger. 

_This is going to be a problem _.__


	2. Chapter 2

Friday May twelfth finds Andrew sitting on top of his desk with a cigarette lit and between his fingers. The world looks dull and grey to him, the corners of his mouth stay still instead of tugging up like they usually would. With how he played with the time of his medicine the day before, it will take a few hours before his withdrawal makes itself known. 

Enough time to drive to the airport and push and pull at their newest recruit before he has to take another pill and the world gets dipped in color again. 

It’s not exactly quiet in their suite, with Aaron and Nicky playing on the game console connected to the Tv and throwing insults at each other every now and then, but nobody is speaking to Andrew, not even Kevin (who holed himself up in his room with his laptop after breakfast) and Andrew takes a few minutes to think back to last month. Neil Josten had been skittish and something about the way his eyes had seeked out all of the exits around them and the tension in his shoulders had screamed danger to Andrew even in his medicated state, and with capital letters. 

Andrew had made a promise to Kevin back when he was still a baby bird rejected from its nest and with a broken wing and hopelessness written in his eyes, and if Neil Josten is as big of a problem as he makes every fiber of Andrew’s being think he is, Andrew will not hesitate to bury him alive and six feet under with his bare hands. 

Nicky eventually pauses the game and puts down his controller as Andrew finishes his cigarette. Keys bang togethger as he pulls them out of his pocket. The part of Andrew’s mind still dipped in color by his meds makes Andrew want to reach out and snap the noisy TV in half. 

“Andrew?” Nicky asks around a yawn that nearly splits his face in half. “What’s that look for? You know I have to drive to the airport, I’ll just let you guys out at Wymack’s--”

“No.” 

“No?” It’s almost comical, the way his cousin gapes and his eyes widen. If Andrew’s meds weren’t slowly draining out of his body, he’d laugh about it. “What do you mean no? I’m going to pick up--” 

In a move too fast for Nicky to track, Andrew hops from the desk and snatches the keys out of his cousin’s hand. He dangles them up, watches the morning light coming in through the window hit them and reflect. 

“No, you’re not,” Andrew says and then, with the knowledge that his own keyring is buried in the pocket of his dark jeans, chucks the keys to his right. They hit the closed door leading to their bedroom with a clang and then fall onto the carpet. The sound satisfies the hot anger that sparked alive under Andrew’s skin. 

Kevin stumbles into the living room as Andrew pulls on his shoes and wordlessly follows along, like the good dog he sometimes manages to be. His brother and cousin follow after a seconds and Andrew thinks that they have to look like a duck family with the way they’re lined up. It’s almost ridiculous enough to force a laugh out of him. 

The drive to the apartment complex Wymack lives in is quiet, but Andrew turns up the radio loud enough not to hear if anyone tries to talk anyway. Nicky’s questioning looks in the rearview mirror get skillfully ignored by Andrew. 

He lets them all out at the apartment complex, throwing a half ironic “have fun!” at them before he steps onto the gas and, wheels squealing, drives off. 

***

It usually takes the normal person about twenty minutes from Wymack’s place to Upstate Regional. Andrew, with his window rolled down and music turned up loud enough to almost distract him from his own thoughts, arrives in only thirteen. 

On any normal day, Andrew would be high off his meds and talk his family’s ears off and trailing Kevin to keep him out of trouble. Their promise makes something itch inside Andrew as he parks his car and gets out of it, ignoring the horns blaring when he gets out without looking first. It stretches between him and Kevin like an invisible band and Andrew resists the urge to drive back immediately and hover, choosing to trust his family enough not to let anything happen in the next hour. 

The sun is beating down on his exposed skin and burning through his dark clothes as he makes his way inside and neatly shoulders his way past the family trying to enter before him. Andrew follows the signs pointing to the Arrivals and a lobby that would be comfortably crowded for anyone else. 

It doesn’t take too long for the first people to walk out; vacationers, businessmen and students heading home at the end of the semester, all carrying handbags and pulling suitcases behind them. Andrew fixes his eyes on a point above the door and crosses his arms. 

Neil Josten is easy to spot, hurrying into the lobby after the crowd. His clothes hang from his frame as if they’re two sizes too big and the bag at his side bumping into him with every step. His dark gaze finds Andrew after fixing on one of the exits and he crosses the room to meet him. It’s almost impossible to miss the wheels starting to turn in Neil’s head when he stops in front of Andrew. Online is enough information about himself and Aaron. His brother gets branded as the normal one of them, ignoring the debates if anyone related to himself could be sane. 

Half crazed laughter bubbles up inside of Andrew but he swallows it down and his fingers start itching for a cigarette. 

“Neil,” Andrew says, taking in the dark eyes and eyes for a moment. The three inches he has on Andrew are almost unnoticeable with the way he slouches. “Baggage claim,” he adds and points. 

“Just this,” Neil says and taps the strap of the damaged and dirty duffel bag hanging off his shoulder. It’s small enough to be a carry-on and something in Andrew tightens when he looks at it. 

He accepts this without a comment and turns away, feigning boredom as he starts to walk away. Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew watches how Neil’s eyes jump from the exit to the people near it. Neil’s eyes keep jumping back and forth and Andrew keeps watching as they walk through the sliding glass doors into the muggy summer afternoon. 

There’s a small crowd waiting at the crosswalk for the light and Andrew pushes right through them into the streets, not caring enough or having enough patience to join them. A taxi slams to a stop inches from Andrew and if the fog in his head was any thicker, he would laugh at almost being run over. Now, he just pulls a cigarette out of his pack and lights it. The driver yelling at him is background noise, like a bee buzzing around his head. And isn’t that a funny way to phrase it. 

Not one moment does Andrew fail to notice how Neil Josten’s eyes take in everything around them as they make their way to his car. 

“Baggage in the trunk,” Andrew says after opening the drivers door. He sits sideways on the seat to finish his cigarette and takes a moment to think. The fog in his head is cleared, almost gone completely and his thoughts are quiet enough to focus on a single one without it jumping around like a gummi ball and getting faster every second. 

The way Neil’s eyes keep jumping around, even now as he climbs into the passenger seat after throwing his duffel in the back, makes Andrew think back to meeting him high off his mind. There is something about the unfitting clothes, the dark hair and eyes that’s almost unsettling. Andrew guesses, as he takes a drag of his cigarette, that he will have enough time to break Neil Josten apart like a puzzle and put him together like one to figure him out and get bored by the result. 

Andrew flicks his half smoked cigarette onto the concrete at his feet and tugs the door closed. A twist of the key in the ignition gets the engine humming and Andrew glaces at Neil again. He doesn’t resist the tug of his mouth and throws a smile at him. 

“Neil Josten,” he says, testing the way the name sounds out loud. “Here for the summer, hm?” 

“Yes.”

Andrew cranks the air conditioner up as high as it goes, his forearms underneath his armbands feel like they’re on flames, and puts the car in reverse. “That makes five of us, but word is you’re going to stay with Coach.” 

“Kevin stays on campus?” Neil asks and Andrew thinks that Neil really has to get over this hatred on Kevin or his crush on him if he doesn’t want to end up buried six feet under. 

“Where the court is, Kevin is,” Andrew says instead of voicing his thoughts and clenches his teeth for a second. Kevin’s need to be on the court at all times and his need to talk about exy all the time are sickening. “He can’t exist without it.” 

“I didn’t think it was the court Kevin was staying for,” Neil says, and while that is only partially true, Andrew doesn’t answer. 

It’s a short drive to the parking lot exit and Andrew has cash ready for the lady at the booth. As soon as the bar lifts to let them out, he steps down on the gas. A horn sounds at them in warning as they cut right into traffic and Andrew can see Neil tightening his buckle out of the corner of his eye. When they’re on the road, he flicks Neil a sideways look. He suddenly has the same urge he had last month; to put Neil Josten under a microscope to find any wounds and then pull and push at them. 

“I hear you didn’t hit if off with Kevin last month.” Which is, all in all, an understatement of Neil acting like a feral kitten when he heard Kevin’s imperious talk about exy and whatnot. 

“No one warned me he was going to be there,” Neil says, his head turned to the window on his right. “Maybe you’ll forgive me for not reacting well.” 

“Maybe I won’t. I don’t believe in forgiveness, and it wasn’t me you offended,” Andrew says, thinking back to how prissy Kevin had acted on their way back to Palmetto and the following day after it. He thinks back further, remembers two Ravens standing in front of him, demanding more than asking to join their team. Remembers that he told them no. “That’s the second time a recruit has told him to fuck off. If it was possible to dent that arrogance of his, his pride would have shreds through it. Instead he’s losing faith in the intelligence of high school athletes.” 

“I’m sure Andrew had his reasons for refusing, same as me.” 

And didn’t he have them, with the promise he made with Aaron burning inside of him like a wild flame. 

“You said you weren’t good enough, but here you are anyway. You think a summer of practices will make that much difference?” 

“No,” Neil says. “It was just too hard to say no.” 

“Coach always knows what to say, hm? It makes it harder for the rest of us, though,” Andrew says, but he doesn’t mean exy with it. “Not even Millport should have taken a chance on you.” 

Neil lifts his shoulder next to him. “Millport’s too small to care about experience. I had nothing to lose by trying out and they had nothing to gain by refusing me. It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, I guess.” 

The words come out of his mouth without hesitation and they don’t sound like a lie to Andrew, but he knows from experience how talented liars, people who dip the truth into lies like gasoline and set it on fire, can be. 

“Do you believe in fate?” Andrew asks scornfully and chooses to ignore his thoughts for now. 

“No. Do you?” 

“Luck, then,” Andrew says, not answering the return question. 

“Only the bad sort.” 

“We’re flattered by your high opinion of us, of course.” Andrew pulls at the wheel, sliding the car from one lane to the other without bothering to check the traffic around him. Horns blare behind him but they do nothing but make a faint spark of amusement bubble up inside of Andrew, buried deep inside of the part of his head clouded over. 

He sees Neil look into the rearview mirror and glances at it himself, watching as cars swerve to avoid hitting them. “It’s too nice a car to wreck.” 

“Don’t be so afraid to die.” The car keeps gliding across the four-lane road to the exit ramp under his steady hands. “If you are, you have no place on our court.” 

“We’re talking about a sport, not a death match.” 

“Same difference,” Andrew says, remembering the scars on Kevin’s left hand. “You’re playing for a class I team with Kevin on your line. People are always willing to bleed for him. You’ve seen the news, I assume.” 

“I’ve seen it,” Neil says and Andrew flicks his fingers at him, bored by the topic. Riko Moriyama does nothing but awaken the urge in Andrew to pull him apart like string cheese, to fold him into a paper airplane and let him sail into outer space where he eventually gets swallowed by a black hole. 

Wymack’s apartment complex is a twenty-minute drive from the airport. The parking lot is mostly empty due to it being mid-afternoon on a workday. Andrew flicks his eyes over the three people waiting on the sidewalk, seeing that they’re all still in one piece. 

Andrew is the first one out of the car and he aims the key ring at the back of the car to unlock the trunk. He doesn’t wait around for Neil and walks to the others at the curb, slotting into the space left between Kevin and his cousin.

“Oh,” Nicky says quietly as Neil slings his ratty duffel bag over his shoulder. 

“What was that?” Andrew asks and lets his mouth curl into a smile as Nicky’s eyes widen for a second. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Nothing? Yes, I agree!” 

Andrew keeps smiling as Neil walks up to them and hopes Neil is smart enough to remember that Andrew’s cheer, as fake as is at the moment, doesn’t mean he’s going to play nice. He was wearing a smile when he took a swing at Neil last month too. 

The drive made curiosity itch under Andrew’s skin, and curiosity can be a dangerous thing. It is what killed the cat, after all, isn’t it? 

“Hey,” Nicky says to Neil and grips his hand, pulling him up onto the curb with it. There’s a smile on his face, a genuine one, and he actually looks happy to see Neil. It makes Andrew want to gag. “Welcome to South Carolina. Flight go okay?” 

“It was fine,” Neil says. 

“I’m Nicky.” Andrew’s eyes flick down to where Nicky is squeezing Neil’s hand before he looks up in Neil’s face again and Nicky lets go. “Andrew and Aaron’s cousin, backliner extraordinaire.” 

Neil looks from Nicky to Andrew and his brother and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out his thought process. Where Andrew and Aaron are light, Nicky is dark with his jet black hair, dark brown eyes, and dark skin. Not to mention that he has an irritating foot on them. “By blood?” 

Nicky laughs. “Don’t look it, right? Take after my mom.” And isn’t that a blessing, really. Andrew thinks, as Nicky goes on about his mother getting rescued, that if his cousin had taken after his dear uncle father, there would’ve been no chance for Nicky to survive near Andrew. “You already met them, right? Aaron, Andrew, Kevin? Coach was supposed to be here to let you in, but he had to head up to the stadium real quick. The ERC called him, probably with more BS about how we haven’t publicized out sub yet. In the meantime you’re stuck with us, but we’ve got Coach’s keys. Suitcases in the trunk?” 

“It’s just this,” Neil says, pointing at his duffel bag and Andrew has the urge to force it out of his protective grip. To rip it open and spill all the contents of it on the ground. 

Nicky arches an eyebrow at him and looks back at Andrew, Aaron and Kevin. “He packs light. I wish I could travel like that, but hell if I ain’t materialistic.” 

“Materialistic is just a start,” Aaron says, and surprisingly, Andrew finds himself agreeing with his brother. 

Nicky grins and catches Neil’s shoulder to guide him towards the front door, and Andrew watches for any signs of discomfort. “This is where Coach lives,” he says, unnecessarily. “He makes all the money, so he gets to live in a place like this while we poor people couch surf.” 

“You have a nice car for someone who thinks he’s poor,” Neil says. 

“That’s why we’re poor,” Nicky says drily. 

“Aaron’s mother bought it for us with her life insurance money,” Andrew explains, forcing half cheer into his half sober expression. Andrew knows, while he himself resembles a sleeping best whose tail shouldn’t be pulled, Aaron is more like a sleeping chihuahua and he can’t help poking him with the promise they made always in the back of his mind. “It’s no surprise she had to die to be worth anything.” 

“Easy,” Nicky says, with his eyes on Aaron as he says it. 

But Aaron, nothing but predictable, stays quiet and Andrew can’t help but let his smile grow. A chihuahua through and through. 

“Easy, easy.” Andrew lifts his hands in a careless shrug. “Why bother? It’s a cruel world, right Neil? You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.” 

“It’s not the world that’s cruel,” Neil says. “It’s the people in it.”

“Oh, so true.” 

They ride up the elevator to the seventh floor in silence. Andrew watches Neil, watches how he looks at the numbers tick above the door and how he obviously tries not to look at their star striker. 

Wymack’s apartment is number 724 and they gather around the door so Aaron can dig out the key Andrew had flung at him earlier. It takes him two tries to remember which one he put it in and Andrew almost taps his foot on the floor out of impatience. 

“Here you go, Neil,” Nicky says and gestures for him to precede them. “Home sweet home, if anything involving Coach can be called sweet.” 

It’s interesting to watch, the way Neil looks up and just stops. He locks up, frozen, and hesitates. There’s a faint whisper in the back of Andrew’s mind as Nicky sends Aaron a curious and confused look, and he steps up alongside Neil. 

The apartment isn’t much to look at; a boring living room with an uncomfortable looking couch with a sticky note attached to it. It’s the only clean surface in the room, everything else is covered in paperwork and empty coffee mugs. 

Andrew smiles at Neil, his thoughts start to bounce around in his head again. He doesn’t know what about Wymack’s boring apartment could have caused to trigger Neil’s fight or flight instinct like that but he’s not against prying the information out of Neil if he has to. 

Neil meets Andrew’s stare for only a moment, then steps over the threshold and starts down the hall. 

Problem, his mind sings to him as he makes his way inside with Kevin on his heels and Andrew agrees. He just has to figure out how big of a problem Neil Josten will end up being, really. 

“What was all that about?” Nicky asks in German and turns to Aaron, as if Aaron is all knowing and can actually use his brain cells for something else than himself and his little cheerleader. 

“Maybe he was savoring the moment,” Aaron says and Andrew’s fingers start to itch for another cigarette. 

“No,” Nicky says. “That was pure fight or flight. What the hell did you say to him, Andrew?” 

Andrew almost snorts when Nicky turns to Neil and offers to give him a tour of the place. Even Nicky was able to put together and see Neil’s reaction for what it was. He turns, uninterested in them for now, and walks into the kitchen. 

He’s halfway into the fridge when he hears shoes scraping over the ground. 

“And?” Kevin asks from somewhere behind him, quiet enough that the others won’t hear him. 

“Paprika, a half empty yoghurt, a piece of half eaten bread, some root beer, cheese, butter and three bananas,” Andrew says as if that’s the answer Kevin is waiting for and closes the fridge to open one of the shelves he can reach without a problem. “Do you think Coach would notice if I put the bananas in the freezer?” Andrew asks without actually considering to do that. “Maybe he’ll chip a tooth.” 

Kevin clicks his tongue. “I wasn’t asking about the contents of Wymack’s fridge.” 

Andrew lets the cabinet door slam shut and opens another one. “Sunny with a blue sky, 89°F, almost unbearable with long sleeves, perfect to eat ice.” He pushes the packs of noodles to the side and at the far back there is what he had been searching for, a clear bottle of whiskey. “Found you!”

“Andrew.” 

“Kevin,” Andrew says as he turns around with the whiskey bottle in his hand. He taps the tip of it against his frown. “You’ll get wrinkles if you keep that up, old man.” 

“Andrew--” 

“Turn that frown upside down!” Andrew walks out of the kitchen and crosses the living room to the office, where he finds everyone else. He holds the bottle up at his arrival. “Success.” 

“Ready, Neil?” Nicky asks. “We should probably beat it before Coach shows up.” 

“Why?” Neil points at the bottle in Andrew’s hand. “Is this a robbery in progress?” 

“Maybe it is,” Andrew says, entertained by the thought of robbing Wymack’s apartment of his other belongings instead of just his alcohol. “Will you tell Coach on us? So much for being a team player. I guess you really are a Fox.” 

“No,” Neil says, “but I would ask him why you’re not medicated.” 

Andrew’s brother and cousin freeze for a second and Andrew can imagine that even Kevin is surprised by that question but can’t find the motivation or the curiosity to look over his shoulder and confirm that. It’s interesting, really, that Neil figured out it was Andrew who picked him up from the airport and not his twin and while Andrew can guess how he managed to do that, he would be interested in having it confirmed. Especially when not even Kevin or their own cousin can tell the difference between Andrew and Aaron when Andrew isn’t smoking and his armbands aren’t visible. 

Problem, Andrew thinks, and is more amused than concerned by it. 

Nicky is the first to find his tongue, but he reverts to German to ask Aaron, “Am I crazy? Did I just see that happen?”

“Don’t look at me,” Aaron says, and it’s again oh so predictable and usual for him to shrug and stand by. 

“I’d prefer an answer in English,” Neil says and while Andrew still doesn’t have eyes on the back of his head, he is sure does Kevin. 

He puts the thumb of his free hand to the corner of his mouth and drags it along his lips to erase his smile that is more acting than his drugs. “That sounds like an accusation, but I didn’t lie to you.” 

“Omission is the easiest way to lie,” Neil says. “You could have corrected me.” 

“Could have, didn’t,” Andrew says. “Figure it out for yourself.” 

“I did,” Neil says. He taps two fingers to his temple, completely copying Andrew’s mocking salute from their first meeting and his words when he ads, “Better luck next time.” 

“Oh,” Andrew says because, really, oh. “Oh, you might actually turn out to be interesting. For a little while, at least. I don’t think the amusement will last. It never does.” 

“Don’t mess with me.” There it is again. The ferocity of a wild, cornered animal. 

“Or what?” 

There is a rattle as someone balls the knob on the front door, and it saves Neil from having to answer. Andrew pulls the corners of his mouth up in a smile again, bright and vacant. He turns to Kevin, and for all that Kevin is an old dog that can’t learn new tricks on most days, he moves at the same time. The whiskey is out of his hand and held up between Kevin and Aaron’s bodies in a practiced move. 

“Hi Coach,” Andrew calls over his shoulder as the door opens. 

“Do you have any idea how much I hate coming home and finding you in my apartment?” Wymack demands from out of sight. 

Andrew holds up his empty hands to mimic an innocence that no one believes and steps into the hallway, Aaron and Kevin with the alcohol on his heels. It is kind of funny, Andrew thinks, how much Wymack looks like a garageband rocker with his faded tee and jean shorts and how little he looks like a university coach.

“I didn’t break anything this time,” Andrew says and Wymack scoffs halfheartedly. 

“I’ll believe that after I’ve checked everything I own.” The door slams shut behind him, and he throws his keys onto some of the the papers littering the table in front of the couch. He lets his eyes run over Kevin and Aaron for a split second and makes his way to his office. “I see you made it all right,” Wymack says when he stops in the doorway and nods. “I was pretty sure Nicky’s driving was going to get you killed.” 

“I’ve survived worse,” Neil says and Andrew takes a moment to tilt his head at that. 

“There is no surviving worse driving than that idiot’s,” Wymack says. “There’s just open casket or closed.” 

“Hey, hey,” Andrew hears Nicky say. “That’s not fair.” 

“Life isn’t fair, tweedle-dumb. Get over it. What are you still doing here?” Wymack turns to look at Andrew, Aaron and Kevin. 

“Leaving,” Andrew says and the forces his mouth into another smile. “Goodbye. Is Neil coming too?” 

“Going where?” Wymack asks and if Andrew had properly taken his meds this morning, he would laugh at the suspicious look on his face. 

“Jeez, Coach, what kind of people do you think we are?” Nicky asks. 

“Do you really want me to answer that?” 

“We’re taking him to the court,” Aaron says and Andrew blinks at his twin, wondering if he missed anything while he was at the airport; possibly something that has to do with the cheerleader Aaron tries to sneak around with. “We can give him a lift to Abby’s after. You didn’t need him, did you?” 

“Just to give him this,” Wymack says and Neil catches the keys he tosses his way. There are two rings looped together with two keys on one and three on the other. Wymack starts to tick them off on his fingers. “Long key is for when the front gate closes at night. Small one gets you into the apartment. The others are for the stadium: outer door, gear room, and court doors. Kevin has a matching set, so make him show you which is which I expect you to make as much use of them as he does.” 

“Thank you,” Neil says and Andrew watches as he clenches his fingers tight around them. Maybe not only paranoid, he thinks, but also desperate. “I will.” 

“Blatant favoritism, Coach,” Andrew says, not because he wants his own keys but because he’s getting impatient and watching Neil cling to his keys is making Andrew antsy. 

“If you ever went to the court of your own volition, maybe I’d give you a set too,” Wymack says. “Since I don't see that happening anytime this lifetime or next, you can shut up and share with Kevin.” 

Andrew doesn’t think that it’s going to happen, ever, but he doesn’t say it. “Oh, joy, joy,” Andrew says. “My excited face begins now. Can we go?” 

“Get out,” Wymack tells him and Andrew does. 

He doesn’t have the energy to argue and he genuinely doesn’t care enough to do it either. The little bit of energy Andrew had this morning and an hour ago is quickly vanishing like the water in a tub after pulling the plug. 

The light spilling into the hallway from the windows on the right paints one side of the hallway in bright colors, and throws the other side into shadows. 

Andrew leans against the wall and fixes his eyes onto a speck of dirt on the wall next to Wymack’s front door and pretends not to notice Kevin’s imperios look as soon as he joins him, followed by his brother and cousin. 

Kevin opens his mouth, probably to say something that will make Andrew wish he were a fly on the wall he could squish, when Nicky says, “Well! That was fun, wasn’t it?” He sighs when no one answers him and pulls out his phone. “You guys are gonna suck the life out of me. I’m going to hit twenty-eight and be completely grey.” 

It doesn’t take more than five minutes for Neil to join them, and he’s slipping another key onto his key ring as he does. Andrew’s attention doesn’t linger on the extra key, he turns and walks into the direction of the elevator while Neil closes the door and locks it. The elevator arrives only seconds after Neil rejoins them and they file inside. 

Nicky and Aaron stand on the left and right, and Andrew shoves Kevin next to him so that they’re opposite of Neil. Andrew lets his smile vanish when the elevator doors close and it starts its slow crawl down. He imagines, with how skittish Neil had been acting on the airport and when they entered Wymack’s apartment, that this is mildly uncomfortable for him. 

Neil returns Andrew’s stare, tension visible in the way his shoulders inch up towards his ears. At the fifth floor, Andrew pushes away from the back railing behind him and starts for Neil. He makes as if he’s reaching for Neil’s keys, once, twice, and then Neil is backed up against the metal doors. The keys vanish in Neil’s pocket, not that Andrew cares much for them. 

“How nice to meet you, Neil,” Andrew drawls, not meaning one word of what he says. “It will be a while before we see each other again.” 

“Somehow I don’t think I’m that lucky.”

The thing is, neither does Andrew. Oddly enough, curiosity is still running hot under his skin and through his veins like lava. It feels like an itch he can’t scratch and that-- 

\--that is a problem. Neil is a problem. And irritating, at best. 

“Like this,” Andrew clarifies, gesturing between their faces. “It will have to wait until June. Abby threatened to revoke our stadium rights for the summer if we break you sooner than that. Can’t have that, can we? Kevin would cry” --the sad thing is that he probably would-- “No worries. We’ll wait until everyone’s here and Abby has too many other Foxes to worry about. Then we’ll throw you a welcome party you won’t forget.” 

His family knows what he means and he ignores the glance Nicky sends his way. 

“You need to rethink your persuasion techniques. They suck.” 

“I don’t need to be persuasive,” Andrew says, and thinks about the knives under his bands as he puts a hand to Neil’s chest when the elevator slows to a stop. “You’ll just learn to do as I say.” 

The doors slide open behind Neil. As soon as they’re parted enough, Andrew gives Neil a small push -- with less force than it would take to push him onto the ground. Neil trips backwards into the lobby and Andrew shoves past him, bumping into him from shoulder to hip, and he feels like he’s burning from that contact, even if it lasts for less than two seconds. 

He heads to the door, his thoughts still pleasantly quiet inside his head and recalls what he had thought after meeting their newest team member. 

Neil Josten is definitely going to be a problem, Andrew just has to wait and to figure out how big of a problem. If the contact lenses he was able to make out in the elevator and the way Neil clammed up and turned into a feral kitten are any indication, dangerous and interesting should get added onto the list, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see y’all tomorrow; comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small warning for alcohol use in this chapter

Andrew sees the Foxhole Court in all it’s glory long before they make it to the stadium parking lot. It is a hard thing to miss, Andrew thinks as he looks at the paint job -- blinding white with an obnoxiously bright orange trim and a gigantic fox paw painted on each of the four outer walls. The color reminds him of fire, and the fog in his mind makes him wonder what it would look like with flames licking up the brickwork and the court engulfed in deadly fire; burning in a sea of red, yellow and orange, tendrils of smoke reaching into the sky.

They pass four parking lots before turning into a fifth. There are a couple of cars already there, and Andrew has the funniest urge to smash their windows -- not that he’s actually going to, nothing would stop Kevin from running to his feathered friend if he called him like a dog. 

He has his eyes on Neil as he goes up to the fence that surrounds the stadium. Gates are placed equidistant down the length of the fence for handling a game crowd; all of them are chained shut. Neil stares through the fence at the outer grounds and he looks like a lost poppy, his eyes big and shining. Andrew can almost hear his heartbeat from the distance between them, excited and sounding like an Exy ball rebounding off a court wall. 

It’s sickening, really, that he compares it to Exy and it shows him more than his rumbling stomach that he needs to take his meds sooner rather than later. 

Nicky claps a hand to Neil’s shoulder. “All the orange grows on you,” he promises. 

It really doesn’t, Andrew thinks but stays quiet. 

“Let me in,” Neil says and he sounds as desperate as Kevin was to be on their court for the first time. 

“Come on,” Nicky says, and leads him down the fence. 

Andrew walks in front of them, too impatient to trot behind them and hear Nicky blabber on. He pretends that he doesn’t notice the biting look Kevin sends his way as he walks down the hallway that cuts the outer grounds in two and through the door, where he stops. 

Kevin, wisely, steps aside before he can bump into Andrew’s back. “Andrew-” he starts, his hand in his pocket, but stops when Andrew ghosts his fingers over his armbands. 

“This is our entrance,” Nicky tells Neil when they join them. “Code changes every couple months, but Coach always lets us know when it does. Right now it’s 0508. May and August, get it?” Andrew doesn’t waste his breath with saying that Neil definitely doesn’t get it. “Coach and Abby’s birth months. Told you they were boning. When’s your birthday?” 

“It was in march,” Neil says, and something about the way his voice thins out at the end holds Andrew’s attention like glue with paper. 

A lie, Andrew thinks, but immediately shoves that thought away. There would be no need for Neil to lie about his age, only if he pretends to be someone he isn’t. Or if he’s hiding something. Andrew remembers paranoid looks at the airport and fingers clenched tightly around the strap of a duffle bag. 

“Oh, we missed it. But we recruited you in April, so that should count as the world’s greatest present. What’d your girlfriend get you?”

Andrew almost snorts at the lack of subtlety. He doesn’t, due to the absence of his meds in his system, but it’s a close thing. 

Neil just looks at Nicky. “What?” 

“Come on, cute face like yours has to have a girlfriend. Unless you swing my way, of yourse, in which case please tell me now and save me the trouble of having to figure it out.” 

Neil blinks, and looks like he doesn’t understand how Nicky can ask him something like that. He looks from Nicky to the keypad and back again. “What’s it matter?” he asks. 

“I’m curious,” Nicky says. 

Nosey, Andrew thinks with a half cheer and manages not to laugh when Aaron says it out loud. Weird, how alike they are at moments. So much that they think the same. It’s almost, Andrew muses, as if they’re related. 

“I don’t swing either way,” Neil says and Andrew’s fingers itch for another cigarette again, one of the signs that he has to take his medicine soon. The only sign that comes before the nausea and the feeling of his bones being heavy enough to drag him into the earth. “Let’s go in.” 

“Bullshit,” Nicky says. 

“I don’t,” Neil says, a smidge of impatience in his voice. “Are we going in or not?”

Finally, Kevin moves from next to Andrew and lifts his arm to tap in the code and pull the door open. “Go,” he says to Neil and then follows him down the hall with Andrew on his heels. 

Andrew watches with mild interest as Neil takes in the longue with its chairs, couches and an entertainment center, and looks at the framed pictures on the wall. With a spark of amusement, he thinks back to the pictures he had seen hanging in the Millport stadium. Interesting, he muses, how Neil hadn’t been in a single one.

He listens to Nicky telling Neil to be nice to Renee and barely suppressed a snort. Neither Dan nor Allison need any protection from Neil, and least of all Renee with her sharp smile -- not that Andrew is going to say that anytime soon. 

Kevin walks out of the room and Andrew follows, as he always does. He stops when Kevin does, waits until the door to the lockers is closed again and walks when Kevin walks. 

They step into the foyer, the large room that opens into the stadium and the only place where the press can meet the Foxes after games for interviews and photographs. It’s a shame, really, that Andrew doesn’t get press duty. 

“Welcome to the foyer,” Nicky says to Neil and waves one hand to the orange benches that are set here and there. It looks atrocious, in Andrew’s opinion. “By ‘we’ I mean whatever clever smartass preceded us.” 

Andrew staddles one of the benches and pulls out the bottle of his pills out of his pocket as Neil continues to look around the room, the same idiotic fastination on his face that he had standing in front of the stadium. It would be funny, how nauseating it is to look at, if there wasn’t sickness climbing up Andrew’s throat. 

Aaron hands Kevin the whiskey they snitched and Kevin brings it to Andrew and waits as Andrew shakes a pill onto the orange bench before trading him the whiskey for the pill bottle. The medicine quickly disappears into one of Kevin’s pockets and Andrew opens the whiskey before throwing the pill into his mouth and washing it down with a big swig of whiskey. 

The burn of the alcohol running down Andrew’s throat is familiar, as is the sharp taste of it in his mouth. He doesn’t watch as Kevin and Neil leave the room followed by his brother and cousin, drowsiness already making his eyelids drop. His bones are heavy when he stands up and leaves the foyer, his head buzzing with empty noise. 

Finding the door to Wymack’s office and picking the lock to it is something Andrew could do if he were blindfolded or asleep. There’s a table with papers everywhere, a plastic container with pens and other stuff that doesn’t hold Andrew’s interest. Neil’s file is, of course, not anywhere in this room -- it isn’t the first time Andrew broke into Wymack’s office, and it won’t be the last. 

Andrew ignores the uncomfortable chair standing behind the table as he puts the bottle of whiskey down, sweeps everything onto the floor and lays on the hard wooden surface of the table with his arm covering his eyes to block out the light. In a matter of seconds, he feels the blackness come over him. Covering him like a blanket, making his eyes feel heavier and heavier. He’s out like a light in the matter of seconds. 

Dreaming isn’t something that Andrew does every day. It rarely happens; only when his drugged thoughts become nonsense and more interesting as he comes down from his medication before he gets pulled into a fog of memories and forbidden hopes he’d had once and that were blown away by a hand cutting through it. 

Faint pressure on his arm has Andrew swinging before his eyes snap open. His fist connects with something hard and there’s a quiet groan from next to him. When he sits up and turns his head, Kevin is clutching his stomach with one hand. 

“Did you eat something bad?” Andrew hops from the table, lands on some of the documents he threw down and picks up the bottle of whiskey. He walks by Kevin and points at him when we walks by. “That doesn’t look too healthy, now does it?” 

He walks out of the office without waiting for Kevin but slow enough for the striker to catch up to him easily. Andrew is almost surprised that Kevin thought waking Andrew up by tapping his shoulder was a good idea when he vividly remembers (like he remembers everything) Nicky and Aaron telling him not to do so without keeping a distance. Well, Andrew thinks with amusement bubbling up from deep inside as he hears the soles of Kevin’s shoes slap on the floor, some dogs just take longer to learn new tricks.

Andrew’s eye twitch from a speck on the wall to a crumpled piece of paper on the floor as they make their way inside the stadium, nothing interesting enough to keep his attention with his thoughts ping-ponging inside of his head. He pretends not to notice Kevin trying to glare holes into the side of his head. 

“Andrew—”

“No,” he cheerily says when they round the corner. From here, he can see three figures running around on the court and the sound of exy balls banging against the wall echoes in his head like a ticking clock. 

Kevin scoffs and twirls his racquet in his hand. “Come on, Andrew—” 

“Beep.” Andrew twists the lid of the vodka bottle and takes a swig. “The number you have called is not available. Do not try again later.” 

Kevin scrunches up his nose in distaste and it almost looks like he wants to stomp his foot like the brat he is. But he just keeps twirling his racquet in one hand while he walks closer to the home bench, an intense look on his face as he watches Nicky, Aaron and Neil. 

Andrew walks by Kevin and discovered a spare ball laying on the ground that he picks up. He gets a glimpse of Nicky almost running into Neil and wonders if the ball would bounce off as if it were made of gummi if you threw it at him. Not that he’s going to do that, Kevin would throw another fit and that could be dangerous with his old age. 

Standing up is too much effort, Andrew decides after two seconds of turning the ball in his left hand. He knows without looking that Kevin expects him to actually watch what’s happening, and since Andrew isn’t a people pleaser, he puts his vodka on the ground after another sip and lays down on the home bench. 

The sound of Aaron calling the scrimmage to a stop is background noise to Andrew and he throws the ball straight in the air, considers letting it hit his own face for a moment, and then catches it again before he repeats the process. His stomach starts to twist in hunger and his next throw is with more force. 

He thinks back to earlier, to seeing Neil Josten without his drug hazed mind. No matter how he looks at it, the skittish way he carries himself and looked for exits first thing, the way he went into fight or flight upon entering Wymack’s ugly apartment spell ‘problem’. And his crush on Kevin and the contact lenses make him a capital one. Andrew is sure that he is missing something, a small part to a bigger puzzle, and he can’t wait to figure it out. Maybe this will hold his attention for longer than anything else does before he eventually gets bored again. 

The sound of the court door opening and Aaron and Nicky walking off tunes out Andrew’s rumbling stomach. Andrew catches the ball one more time before the court door bangs closed and sits up to throw his ball to Nicky. He scoops up the whiskey bottle and twists the lid off.

“About time,” he says. “Nicky, it’s so boring waiting on you.” 

“We’re done now,” Nicky says, and then hooks his helmet over the end of his racquet to reach for the whiskey. “About time you stop that, don’t you think? Abby’s going to beat me senseless if she realizes you’ve been drinking.” 

If it were anyone Andrew didn’t consider family he would’ve smashed the bottle over their head, and while the thought is very amusing, he lets Nicky take the whiskey. 

“Doesn’t sound like my problem,” Andrew says, knowing that Abby wouldn’t put a hand on his cousin, and lets his amusement shine through with a brilliant smile. 

Nicky looks at Aaron, as if Aaron of all people will suddenly grow a spine and decide to actually say something useful for once, but Aaron goes ahead to the locker room. Nicky mimes blowing his brains out before following. 

“This is going to be a very long season,” Kevin says to Neil and Andrew longs for a cigarette to survive more talk about this ridiculous sport. 

“I told you I wasn’t ready.” 

“You also said you wouldn’t play with me, but here we are.” 

When Neil doesn’t answer, Kevin gets right in his face and tangles his fingers through the netting on Neil’s racquet. This, Andrew thinks when he sits up straighter, has to be very exciting for someone who idolizes Kevin Day. 

Kevin and Neil play tug of war with the racquet for a few seconds before Kevin just holds on. 

“If you won’t play with me, you’ll play for me,” Kevin says, arrogance leaking from his words like water out of a open water bottle held upside down. “You’re never going to get there on your own, so give your game to me.” 

Andrew remembers, after Kevin had come to Palmetto with his broken hand, hearing those exact words. _Give your game to me_ , he’d said, disgusting desperation with chin held high turning into a frown when Andrew had said no.

The thing is that Kevin didn’t ask Andrew, he demanded. And that would never get someone far, not even if that someone is Kevin Day. 

“Where is ‘there’?” Neil asks and that question sounds very familiar. 

“If you can’t figure that out there’s no helping you,” Kevin says. He and Neil stare at each other for a few seconds, and then Kevin reaches up and covers Neil’s eyes with his free hand. “Forget the stadium,” he says. “Forget the Foxes and your useless high school team and your family. See it the only way it really matters, where Exy is the only road to take. What do you see?” 

Hearing that, and trying to imagine life in such simplistic terms, is so ridiculously funny that the smile on Andrew’s face grows. It grows a little bigger when he sees the way Neil twists his mouth to the side, which is _interesting_ considering how much he looked earlier when they entered the stadium. 

Kevin tugs on Neil’s racquet where his fingers are still knotted into the net and tells him to focus. 

Andrew tries to do the same and stops immediately, his foggy thoughts and his general dislike for Exy make it impossible. He watches Neil instead, the puzzle piece that doesn’t fit in any of the free spaces of the whole picture, the combination of dangerous and weirdly interesting. There’s something hiding behind those contact lenses, the skittish behavior and the old duffle bag, and Andrew is too curious and protective of his family not to look. 

“You,” Neil says at last and that has to be the dumbest thing Andrew has heard all day. But considering Neil’s obsession with Kevin, maybe it does make some sense. 

“Tell me I can have your game.” 

“Take it.” 

“Neil understands,” Kevin says as he drops his hand and sends Andrew a pointed look. 

“Congratulations are in order, I suppose!” Andrew says because he really doesn’t care about who takes whose game. “Since I have none to give, I will tell the others to respond appropriately.” He pushes himself to his feet and swallows more whiskey on the way up, his throat hot and burning. “Neil! Hello. We meet again.” 

“We met earlier,” Neil says, and Andrew has the urge to knock against his head to see if it’s as empty as it seems to be in this moment. He doesn’t, but the urge is very strong. “If this is another trick, just let it go.” 

Andrew grins at him around the mouth of the bottle. “Don’t be so suspicious,” he says, which is a little hypocritical, if he thinks about it. “You saw me take my medicine. If I hadn’t, I’d be keeled over somewhere by now puking from the withdrawal. As it is, I might puke from all the fanaticism going around.” 

He really, really needs some food. And a cigarette, maybe some more whiskey when Nicky isn’t looking. 

“He’s high,” Kevin tells Neil as if it isn’t obvious. “He tells me when he’s sober, so I always know. How did you figure it out?”

And that--here’s the thing. Andrew on his medication is the polar opposite of when he’s sober, and that Kevin needs to be told when he’s off and on them when it should be blatantly obvious makes something burn through Andrew’s veins like fire. 

“They’re twins, but they’re not the same.” Oh, and isn’t that the truth. Neil lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “One of them hates your obsession with Exy while the other couldn’t care less.” 

Kevin turns to look at Andrew but Andrew has a hard time looking away from Neil. He hasn’t been around Andrew for a whole day yet, not even close, and seen him off and on his medication and had been able to tell the difference between him and his identical twin brother. 

That, Andrew thinks before he starts to laugh, that just makes him all the more interesting, and dangerous. “He’s a comedian, too? An athlete and a comedic and a student. How multitalented. What a grand addition to the Fox line. I can’t wait to find out what else he can do,” he says. Maybe Neil can even pick a lock. Or juggle. “Perhaps we should throw a talent show and find out? But later. Kevin, we’re going. I need food.” 

His stomach twists in agreement and Kevin gives Neil his hideous racquet back before they go to the locker room. Aaron and Nicky are already in the showers when they arrive and if Andrew weren’t so hungry, maybe he’d try to look through his brothers phone to get the confirmation of their broken deal. Not that he doesn’t have that already. 

Neil sits down on a bench and Kevin frowns at him. “We’re not taking you to Abby’s like that,” he says. “Wash up.” 

“I won’t shower with the team,” Neil says and Andrew looks at him, all humor momentarily lost even if his mouth is still twisted in a smile. “I’ll wait, and if you don’t want to wait on me, just go on ahead. I’ll find my way there from here.” 

Runaway, Andrew’s mind sings. 

“Nicky going to be a problem for you?” Andrew asks through his smile, warning dripping from his words. 

“It’s not about Nicky. It’s about my privacy.”

Andrew inhales and Kevin, tactless as always, snaps his fingers at Neil. “Get over it. You can’t be shy if you’re going to be a star.” 

Andrew leans towards Kevin and puts a hand to his mouth, not bothering to lower his voice as he decides to take a shot in the dark. If not homophobia, there has to be another reason Neil doesn’t want to shower with the rest and even if Andrew understands, understands the burning need for privacy, Neil is still a blank page to him. 

“He has to hide his ouches, Kevin. I broke into Coach’s cabinet and read his files,” he says, which isn’t a lie because he did break into Coach’s office. He didn’t locate Neil’s file anywhere and hadn’t cared about it enough to open cabinets, but that’s not important, now is it? “Bruises, you think, or scars? I think scars, too. Can’t be bruises if his parents aren’t around to beat him, right?” 

Neil looks like someone poured cold water over him. “What did you just say?” 

“I don’t care,” Kevin says to Andrew and ignores Neil’s glare. 

And Andrew ignores Kevin and gestures at Neil, the glare not interesting enough to hold his attention longer than a split second. “Showers aren’t communal here. Coach put in stalls when he built the stadium. The board wouldn’t pay for it--they didn’t see the point--so it came out of Coach’s own pocket. See for yourself if you don’t believe me. You don’t believe me, do you?” Of course he doesn’t. “I know you don’t. That’s probably for the best.” 

“You had no right to read my file!” Neil snaps and it’s all bark and no bite as he keeps sitting on the bench. His hands are twisted together, and pulling at his jersey. 

A laugh bubbles out of Andrew’s mouth at the thought of crossing such a personal line. It’s a delightening thought, really. “Relax, relax, relax. I made that up.” He tells Neil about how they were locked into his old Coach’s office two thousand miles away in Arizona, watching one of his games on TV. Not that it had been interesting for Andrew, but Kevin had been glued to the TV like the disgusting jock he is. He thinks back to Coach Hernandez saying he didn’t meet Neil’s parents a single time, that they spent a lot of time commuting to their jobs in Phoenix, and adds, “But I’m right, aren’t I?” 

Neil opens his mouth, and Andrew waits for a reaction, anything, but then he closes it again. He sucks in a slow breath, his jaw twitching and then gets off the bench. He stalks to the bathroom and Andrew, driven by curiosity, follows. 

The sinks with their ceiling-high mirrors are the connecting section between the toilets and the showers, and the showers are around the corner and out of sight. Neil, smartly not trusting a word that came out of Andrew’s mouth, edges around for a look and Andrew’s lips twitch up more. 

His memory is perfect and doesn’t need to look to see the walls lined with stalls, tall enough to afford complete privacy and outfitted with locking doors. 

He leans forward to say “weird, right?” into Neil’s ear and easily catches the elbow Neil throws back and would have slammed into his ribs if he were anyone else. Andrew laughs at that, backs up a couple of steps. Twitchy, he thinks. “Coach never explained it. Maybe he thought we’d need to grieve our disastrous losses in private.” Not that Andrew minds. “Only the best for his rising stars, right?” 

“I didn’t think Wymack recruited rising stars,” Neil says and pushes past Andrew for his locker, twisting his body so their shoulders don’t brush. 

“No,” Andrew agrees because it’s the truth. “The Foxes will never amount to anything. Try telling Dan that, though, and she’ll box your ears.” He locates the whiskey bottle and scoops it up, starting for the door without looking back. “Kevin, car.” 

Kevin quickly follows like a good dog would. He starts shooting Andrew questioning looks but wisely keeps quiet as they make their way outside. Hunger makes Andrew even more unpredictable, and Andrew guesses Kevin finally understands that. 

He leans against the car and pulls out a cigarette and lights it. The sun is beating down, making the skin under his dark clothing feel like it’s on fire and Andrew nearly snorts. All those references to fire are getting out of hand, aren’t they? Maybe he should bring it up with Bee the next time he sees her; if he still has time to do that after all he wants to tell her, that is. 

It doesn’t take too long for Aaron and Nicky to walk outside, both with wet hair from their showers and the collar of his brother’s shirt is colored a shade darker than the rest. Seems like his mother was even more useless than he already knows. He doesn’t say it, though, the hunger twisting in his stomach makes his patience run even thinner than it already is. 

Nicky takes the keys from Andrew--Andrew lets Nicky take the keys from him--and shakes them at Neil when he comes out of the stadium two minutes later. “It’s your first day, so you get shotgun again. Enjoy it while you can. Kevin hates sitting in the back.” 

“I don’t have to sit up front,” Neil says but Kevin is already piling into the back with Aaron. 

Andrew sits behind the passenger’s seat to rile him up and smiles at Neil when he gets in with a frown. 

The drive is short; Abby lives in a one-story house about five minutes from campus and Andrew spends all five minutes pulling at his seat belt and letting it snap against his chest before pulling the window up and down. 

Nicky parks at the curb since there are two familiar cars already in the driveway when they arrive. The front door is unlocked, so they let themselves in without knocking with Andrew in the front, and are greeted by the thick smells of garlic and warm tomato sauce. 

The others pass him when Andrew stands to the side and runs his eyes over the living room in search for Bee, his stomach giving another twist at the smell of food. Wymack and Abby are in the kitchen already; Wymack grumbling as he digs through the silverware drawer and Abby ignores him in favor of stirring something at the stove. Andrew has the urge to eat whatever it is directly from the pot, or pour it over the clean floor. Maybe both. 

“Hemmick, get over here and be useful for once in your mangy life,” Wymack says when he spots them and stabs a finger at Nicky. “Table needs setting.” 

“Aww, Coach,” Nicky complains as Abby turns. “Why do you always have to pick on me? You already started it. Can’t you finish?” 

“Shut your face and get to work.” 

“Can’t you two behave when we’ve got a guest?” Abby asks and sets aside her spoon to come and greet them. 

“I don’t see any guests,” Wymack says. “Neil’s a Fox. He’s not going to get any special treatment just because it’s his first day. Don’t want him thinking this team is anything but dysfunctional or June will be a rude wake-up call.” 

“David? Shut up and make sure the vegetables aren’t boiling over. Kevin, check the bread. It’s in the oven. Nicky, table. Aaron, help him.” Andrew plays with the lid of the whiskey bottle, his eyes running over the table as Nicky sets it. Something twists inside of him with the knowledge that Bee isn’t here but it’s gone before he has time to drag closer and inspect it. Abby narrows her eyes at him. “Andrew Joseph Minyard, that had better not be what I think it is.” 

She makes a grab for the whiskey and Andrew, amused by the effort, laughs and ducks out of the doorway. He expects her to follow him, but when he looks over his shoulder, he sees that Neil unintentionally put his body in her way. 

Andrew walks down the hall and into Abby’s office, where he finds the light switch to turn it on and off a few times before walking to one of the plants near the big window at the back of the room. 

“What was I supposed to do?” He can hear Nicky ask from the kitchen. “Take it from him? No way in hell.” 

His cousin or not, Nicky would’ve most likely lost a hand trying. 

“You’d be Neil then,” Abby says. “I’m Abby. I’m nurse for the team and temporary landlord to this lot. They’re not harassing you too much, are they?” 

“No worries,” Andrew calls and puts the bottle down on the windowsill between two plants before making his way back. “He’ll actually take work to break, I think,” he adds, remembering the feral, cornered animal Neil reminds him of, “Give me until August, maybe.” 

“If you dare give us a repeat of last year—” 

“Then Bee will be here to pick up the pieces,” Andrew interrupts, and steps next to Neil in the doorway. He raises his hand at Abby in a calming gesture when she continues to frown at him. “She did so well with Mat, didn’t she? Neil won’t even be a blink on her radar.” He looks at the plates around the table, counts them. “You did invite her over, didn’t you?” 

“I invited her, but she declined, She thought it would make things awkward.” 

Oh Bee, Andrew thinks and the corner of his mouth twitches up a little, ever the therapist, aren’t you? 

“Things aren’t anything but awkward when Andrew and Nicky are around,” Coach says. 

Andrew doesn’t bother to reply to that because it’s not like Wymack’s wrong, but looks to Neil instead. “Bee’s a shrink,” he says and manages to focus on Neil’s face, even with his foggy thoughts. “Used to work in the juvie system, but now she’s here. She deals with the really serious cases on campus: suicide watch, budding psychopaths, that sort of thing. That makes her our designated handler. You’ll meet her in August.” 

“Do I have to?” Neil asks and—

—and there is something about his voice, the barest hint of blood flowing out of a wound, that makes a shark snap to attention and hunt down its prey. 

There are a lot of people who don’t like therapists without having a specific reason for it but Andrew doesn’t believe it’s the same for Neil, not when he fits perfectly into their fucked up team with his sharp edges and claws. 

Bingo, Andrew thinks. 

“It’s mandatory once a semester for athletes,” Abby confirms and if Andrew wasn’t looking, he would’ve missed the way Neil’s shoulders lower the smallest bit in defeat. And he keeps watching, refuses to focus on anything else while Abby explains the casual meet-and-greet they all had to go through and the second session in spring. 

“Betsy’s amazing,” Nicky says. “You’ll love her.” 

Neil blinks and Andrew looks away from him, his lips curling up. 

“Let’s eat, shall we?” Abby asks and Andrew moves before she has the chance to motion for them to enter the room.

Conversation dies as everyone gets settled and serves up what they want; Andrew puts two big chunks of steaming lasagna on his plate and Kevin watches in disapproval — Andrew ignores him because he _really_ doesn’t care about what Kevin Day thinks. 

From time to time, the table splits as Kevin and Wymack get caught up talking about something Exy related that Andrew has no interest in. He makes a mental list about everything about Neil Josten that’s setting off his inner alarms as he shovels food into his mouth and almost lets out the laugh that bubbles up his throat. Everything about Neil, from the dark hair over to the contact lenses and the ratty duffle bag to the way his eyes find every exit immediately and behavior regarding Kevin are things that don’t sit right with Andrew. 

Andrew watches Kevin and Wymack talk about Exy, and then he watches Wymack leave with Neil after ten and his eyes stay glued to Neil’s back until he walks out of the room and Andrew is forced to look away. 

“He needs work,” Kevin says to him, thinking Andrew watched Neil for different reasons that he did while Aaron and Nicky talk about a video game that Andrew has absolutely no interest in. 

And Neil does need work, doesn’t he? Andrew scratches his fork against the plate for a second. He just hasn’t made his mind up yet about how much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos and comments are appreciated!
> 
> see y’all tomorrow


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for a brief mention of rape, a brief mention of suicide and a smaller warning for an even smaller mention of riko moriyama. 
> 
> (also: happy new year, everyone)

Andrew spends the following morning inhaling three apples with his morning coffee after taking his pills and watching Kevin walk a line from the window to the doorway and back in Abby’s living room. It’s more amusing to watch than annoying and he wonders, for a split second, if Kevin would catch one of the apples in his mouth if he threw it at him. Nicky and Aaron are playing some game on the TV, nothing that holds Andrew’s attention, occasionally grumling at Kevin to move his ass from their view when he passes. 

His phone vibrates in his pocket with a message from Bee when Kevin stops pacing and tells them to go to the court, a question for their appointment and Andrew sends back ten random letters in individual messages before confirming and snapping his phone shut again. 

When they arrive at the court (Andrew spends the short drive with his seat belt digging into his shoulder as he leans forward between the front seats to play with the radio and maybe elbows Kevin accidentally two or three times), they get quickly changed. Or, Aaron, Nicky and Kevin do. Andrew takes his time, turning away when he changes his shirt and humming the melody that has been stuck inside his head since he took his meds this morning. 

Interestingly enough, Neil is waiting for them when they enter the court. Andrew doesn’t have much time to think about that one, not that it’d be overly successful right now, before Kevin uses his racquet to shoo Andrew towards the goal. And Andrew goes, a spark of amusement dancing along his skin as he lifts his feet in time to avoid getting tripped, and drowns out whatever Kevin is saying to him. 

He watches as Aaron and Nicky scatter balls down the first-fourth like, and Nicky rolls a couple Neil’s way who spaces them out at half-court around him. 

Andrew leans on his racquet as he watches the others starting with drills that gradually increase in difficulty and his lips twitch upwards when he looks at Neil. He didn’t expect Neil to not be a problem anymore after one day, there wasn’t enough time between yesterday and today to solve the puzzle that is Neil Josten with so many pieces still missing, but even simply watching him run around his cousin and brother has Andrew’s muscles tensing. His body is ready to pounce at any second, like a wildcat that sneaks up on its target and is prepared to kill it at any given moment.

And because Neil is the target in this situation, Andrew deflects every shot Neil aims his way. He does the same with Aaron and Nicky, but Kevin manages to actually score a third of his shots. It is to be expected from someone with Kevin’s reputation, that his shots are already stronger than the others even if he plays with his non-dominant hand. 

Kevin kicks the others off the court for a water break after an hour and a half of drills, and stays behind with Andrew to keep practicing. One of the new tricks he learned is that Andrew’s medication gives him so much energy that he feels like a gummi ball thrown into a small, empty room. He is filled with energy, bouncing from wall to wall at the same speed his thoughts are racing one another in his head. 

Now that the others are off the court and out of the way, Andrew smacks the balls he is able to hold as hard as he can and most of them bang off the wall. A few land in the opposite goal and the wall behind them lights up red. 

Stupid, Andrew thinks as Kevin jumps out of the way when Andrew aims for his shins and begins to run behind the ball frantically, how much this useless sport can mean to someone. 

He can’t imagine caring for something as simple as Exy, or seeing the world in a way that’s as simple as Kevin told Neil to imagine it to be. Andrew can’t imagine caring, and isn’t that something Bee would like to hear again, but he is, in a way, intrigued to find out how Kevin will try to hold his interest, how he will try to give something to Andrew when the fog clouding his mind is permanently gone and he isn’t chasing from one high to another. 

Andrew’s muscles start to burn after another few minutes and he lets his racquet slip out of his fingers and watches it drop to the floor, the sound of it making contact with the floor loud in the empty court. His lips twitch up at the corners and he reaches up to undo his helmet and lets that drop to the floor as well. 

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Andrew asks as he throws down his gloves, wiggling his fingers at Kevin. 

“What the hell is taking them so long?”

“Incorrect, it’s ten,” Andrew says and makes a buzzing sound, his smile growing. He follows Kevin’s gaze to the door. Maybe Neil had changed his mind — even if Andrew doubts it, thinking back to the desperate and wide eyed look on his face when he had entered the court the day before — and managed to knock out both Aaron and Nicky despite his small size to run away. “I’ll look!”

He turns anyway, his throat dry and starting to itch when he swallows, and leaves Kevin on the court to collect the balls Andrew had smashed away. 

The stadium door slams against the wall as Andrew pushes it with way too much force than is necessary. Three heads turn at the noise and Andrew gives them the same wide-eyed look they give him. “Kevin wants to know what’s taking you so long. Did you get lost?” 

“Nicky’s scheming to rape Neil,” Aaron says and despite being on his medication, everything in Andrew goes perfectly still and quiet at those words. Under the sleeves of his jersey, under his armbands, his forearms start to itch and for a split second it’s as if they hurt again. “There are a couple of flaws in his plan he needs to work out first, but he’ll get there sooner or later.” 

“You’re such an asshole,” Nicky says and Andrew has the tip of fingers under his armband as his cousin starts for the door, his muscles on fire and burning. 

“Wow, Nicky,” Andrew says through his clenched teeth. “You start early.” 

And then Nicky says, “Can you really blame me?” And Andrew—

—Andrew feels hot and cold, as if his body has been dropped in freezing water and lava is running through his veins. He is boiling, mental too close to fire to touch without burning yourself, close to melting into a puddle of silver on the floor. 

Nicky makes the mistake to glance at Neil, and then Andrew is moving before he makes the conscious decision to do so. He is faster on his meds, and it’s nothing for him to catch Nicky’s jersey in one hand and throw him hard up against the wall. His cousin smartly doesn’t resist, not that he could do much when Andrew possesses more strength despite his height, and grunts at the impact but makes no move to shove Andrew off when Andrew leans up against him. 

His whole body itches at the contact, but there’s still angry heat buzzing inside of him. Neil’s irritated _“I don’t swing”_ plays on repeat in his head, it’s as much refusal as a ‘no’ is and Andrew burns. “Hey, Nicky,” Andrew says in stage-whispered German, shadows creeping into his vision. “Don’t touch him, do you understand?”

“You know I’d never hurt him. If he says yes—”

_Neil doesn’t swing Neil doesn’t swing Neildoesn’tswing_. “I said no.” 

“Jesus, you’re greedy,” Nicky says, and Andrew knows they won’t get anywhere like this. He puts the tips of his fingers under his armband, slips a knife out of its sheath as Nicky takes a breath. “You already have Kevin. Why does it—” 

Nicky goes silent when Andrew presses the knife in his hand against Nicky’s jersey. Andrew grins, overcome with amazement when Nicky’s muscles tense under the weight of the sharp steel where it’s pointed so it can slip perfectly between Nicky’s ribs. 

Andrew wonders, for a moment, if he’d laugh at Nicky’s funeral before he shoves that thought aside. Medicated or not, Andrew is able to control himself just fine, no matter what the others say about him and call him behind his back and to his face. It’s not the drugged fog in his mind that has him act. No, he would do the same if he were sober and without a bright smile on his face. 

“Hey,” Andrew hears Neil say. He doesn’t look away from his cousin. “That’s enough.” 

But is it, really? Andrew thinks it could be more fun, with his cousin looking at him and fear visible in his eyes and Andrew’s knife pressing through his jersey. 

“Quiet,” Nicky says in English, not much louder than a breath of air. “Quiet. It’s fine.” 

“Hey,” Neil says again and Andrew has the urge to slice him in half instead of Nicky, even if it’s only for a split second. “Are we playing or what?” he continues, with clearly as much of a one-track mind than Kevin possesses, and Andrew feels his attention slipping away very slowly. “Kevin’s waiting.” 

Andrew looks away from Nicky at that and at Neil, his muscles loosening and the hot anger in him boiling over and evaporating into a cloud like water. “Oh, you’re right. Let’s go or we’ll never hear the end of it.” 

He lets go of Nicky and turns. The knife is safely tucked away again before he reaches the door and walks out. There’s the sound of the door closing and then shoes hitting the floor behind him in a familiar, quiet rhythm. 

Aaron doesn’t try to talk to Andrew and Andrew doesn’t try to talk to Aaron, but the quiet noise of his twin snapping his phone shut has him smiling over a broken promise before they reach the court. 

“Finally,” Kevin says when Andrew jogs to the half-court line. “What was taking so long?” Kevin clicks his tongue when Andrew doesn’t answer and tries again with a, “is there a problem?” 

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m currently ignoring you,” Andrew says and starts humming to himself when Kevin turns away again with an eye roll. It’s not that Kevin is off with that question, it’s just that Andrew doesn’t know yet how big of a problem Neil Josten is and that Kevin wasn’t asking about that. And Andrew doesn’t feel like giving free answers, at least not to just anyone. Or for free. 

The other three enter the court together, Nicky barely looking at Andrew, and Kevin divides them up with a flick of his fingers. “Aaron is with me. Nicky and Andrew get the child. Two-man team scrimmage with an empty goal.”

“I’m not a child,” Neil says from where he’s standing between Kevin and Nicky, looking like a child. “You’re only a year older than I am.” 

Kevin doesn’t respond to that. 

“Shouldn’t Andrew be with you and Aaron?” Nicky asks, still not looking at Andrew which is really amusing. “Then Neil can practice shooting on him.” 

“If I thought he could make it to the goal, I would have set it up that way.” 

“Team’s fighting words,” Nicky says and grins at Neil and Andrew keeps on humming to himself. “Bring it on, kid.” 

There are only five of them, but they set up as if they have two full teams, which is highly irritating in Andrew’s opinion. Not that anyone ever asks. Neil and Kevin space out on the half-court line, Nicky at first-fourth, and Aaron at far-fourth. Andrew acts as a dealer from his place in the home goal and slams the ball all the way to the other end of the court before he uses his racquet as a prop and leans on it. 

It’s not really boring to watch Neil run around the court at a speed no one else has, but it’s not overly exciting either. He’s fast, Andrew thinks as Kevin smashes their racquets together and goes after the ball, but that isn’t new information, it isn’t a new puzzle piece he forced out of the crack in the wall to help him complete the picture. 

Kevin shoots and Andrew doesn’t try to defend the goal but he does look over his shoulder as the goal lights up red. 

“You could at least try,” Kevin says.

Andrew pretends to think about it for a moment before he says, “I could, couldn’t I? Maybe next time!” he adds, knowing that he won’t because it frustrates Kevin and seeing him throw a hissy fit is so much more entertaining than this sport could ever be to Andrew. 

He catches the ball Nicky throws at him and starts the other four off with another serve when they set up to go again. Nothing, from the way Neil catches the ball to Aaron slamming into him hard enough to make Neil stumble, holds his attention. Aaron throws the ball over Neil’s head and Kevin catches. Andrew watches, again, as Kevin scores for the second time. 

After forty minutes, in which he and Neil both manage to score (not that it should be too difficult with Andrew not changing positions), Kevin calls them to an abrupt halt and sweeps his racquet at the backliners. “Get out. Both of you get out right now.” 

“Thank God,” Nicky says and runs for the door. 

As soon as Aaron pulls the door closed behind them, Kevin grabs the grated front of Neil’s helmet and drags him toward Andrew’s goal. And now _that_ is enough to have Andrew take an interest in the proceedings and he stands up straight, his back popping. 

“Ball,” Kevin says when Neil reaches the fox paw marking the foul line and Andrew tosses one over. Kevin pushes it against Neil’s chest until Neil takes it. “You stay here and fire on Andrew until he’s tired--

Maybe Kevin _does_ hold a grudge against Neil, considering that he knows very well how long it can take for Andrew’s medication to run out of his system enough for him to start feeling tired. Maybe it’s all the weird staring, Andrew thinks. 

“—Maybe you’ll score once.” 

“Uh oh,” Andrew, who is still filled to the brim with energy, says and laughs at Kevin the pissy expression on Kevin’s face. “This won’t end well.”

Neil collects the bucket of balls from the north corner where it’d been stored during the scrimmage as soon as Kevin leaves and slams the door behind him on his way out. He sets the bucket on first-fourth and goes back to the foul line for his first shot. 

Andrew hadn’t lifted a single finger to stop Kevin from scoring on him, the frustration building up in Kevin’s big head when he doesn’t get what he wants was too amusing, but he doesn’t have the same consideration for Neil. He sweeps his big racquet around in a long swing and hits the ball so hard that it bounces off the court wall on the opposite side of the court. Neil keeps trying, Andrew keeps deflecting. 

His muscles start to strain, and Andrew loses track of the time as they keep going and his arms start to numb. But there is still too much energy in him, way too much to make him feel tired or even exhausted, so he keeps going and doesn’t slow down — not even when Neil does. 

He almost bends in half with the force of his laughter when Neil tries to take a swing and loses his grip on his racquet. There is something terribly amusing about the way it clatters against the ground and skids towards the goal. Andrew knocks the ball straight at Neil to see what he will do, but Neil only brings his arms up to shield his face and lets the ball hit his forearms with a smack. 

Housecat or wildcat? Andrew wonders as Neil stumbles back a step and shoots Andrew a dirty look. 

“Let’s go,” Andrew says and reads the exhaustion in Neil’s face. He isn’t tired, not even a little, but Neil clearly is. “Tick tock. I won’t wait forever for you.” 

Neil’s arms shake as he picks up his racquet and Andrew leans back on his own. When Neil tries to lift it high enough for a swing, his right arm does something and the racquet hits the court at his feet. 

“Oh no,” Andrew says. “I think Neil’s in trouble.” 

Neil doesn’t say anything but reaches for his racquet again and picks it up. Andrew keeps leaning on his own, watching with interest and his mouth curling up as Neil tries another shot on goal. With exhaustion written on Neil’s face in bold letters, Andrew doubts there’s any way he will get close to scoring. 

And he’s right; Neil drops his racquet again and the ball rolls harmlessly away. 

“Can you or can’t you?” Andrew asks, his eyes on where Neil’s shoulders rise and fall with the frantic breaths he’s taking. 

Neil crouches down by his racquet. “I’m done.” 

And that--that is smart, isn’t it? Andrew thinks as he leaves the goal. Neil won’t do Kevin any good if he runs himself into the ground trying to accomplish what Kevin can’t do either. He steps with one foot on Neil’s racquet and watches as Neil unsuccessfully tries to pull it out from under him. 

“Get off my racquet.” 

“Make me?” Andrew says and spreads his arms in invitation, in the same way he remembers people in movies doing right before a fight. “Try, anyway.” 

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Such fierce words from such a little creature,” Andrew says, which is extremely hypocritical considering he himself is shorter than Neil by three inches and way more dangerous, on and off his meds. “You’re not very bright. Typical of a jock.” 

“Hypocrite,” Neil says and Andrew almost snorts. It’s a very close thing, really. 

Andrew gives him a thumbs-up instead and pushes past Neil. He can hear him falling down as he leaves the court, but it doesn’t catch his interest enough to turn around and look.

He takes off his gloves on the way to the locker room and flexes his hands, considering the burn of his muscles. It’s not too bad but not quite the pleasant burn he gets after being in the gym either. Andrew takes a quick shower after confirming that the locker room is empty and lets the water get hot enough that it turns his skin pink and makes his muscles scream. 

Kevin, Aaron and Nicky are waiting in front of the car when he exits the stadium. It’s funny, really, how little they converse with each other when he’s not around. Not that it’s any different when he’s there, but it’s still a sight to take in. 

“And?” Kevin asks when Andrew unlocks the car with his keys and then tosses them to Nicky. 

Andrew takes his time answering, waits until everyone is sitting inside the car and they’re on the road and his fingers are on the controls for the windows. “You might want to call Wymack, I don’t think your mini me would be able to jump if you told him to tomorrow.”

The streets are relatively empty, only a handful of people are walking around. Even less cars are on the streets, which is more of a blessing than a curse with how Nicky drives. If someone asked Andrew, not that anyone will, he’d say his own driving is much better than Nicky’s, even if it’s harsher. 

With a curse, Kevin pulls his phone out of his pocket, dials and holds it up. “It’s me,” he says after a few seconds. Andrew sees the reflection of his brother's screen in the window behind him and starts pushing the button for his window frantically. 

“Neil won’t be on the court tomorrow,” Kevin says into the phone and then waits a second. “He tried to blow his arms out against Andrew.” 

He lets out the part where he told Neil to try to score until andrew got tired, but Andrew doesn’t say anything and instead watches his window go up, down, up, down. 

“He is. Yes. Entertain him with clips of past--hold on.” Andrew sees Kevin turn out of the corner of his eye. “Andrew, can you stop doing that for a second?” 

Andrew turns his head, looks Kevin in the eyes and pushes the window down again in a non-verbal no and Aaron lets out a long suffering sigh.

***

It’s almost two weeks later when Andrew is sitting in his car with less than half a cigarette between his fingers and his window open to let the smoke out that the door to the passenger side opens and Kevin sits down. 

Andrew had seen him coming, it would’ve been impossible not to notice someone as tall as Kevin walking towards him, but he makes a surprised face and widens his eyes as he takes a drag of his cigarette. 

“Welcome to Mcdonald’s, what’s your order?” he asks and then blows the smoke directly in Kevin’s face before flicking the rest of his cigarette out of the window.

“Wymack,” Kevin rasps out before his nose scrunches up and he coughs twice. 

“No, this is Andrew,” Andrew says and points at Kevin when he keeps coughing and waving his hand back and forth. “Have I told you that this doesn’t sound healthy? Because it doesn’t.”

“Andrew—” 

“You should really get that looked at by someone with a medical degree. Do we know someone like that?” He snips once, as if he just realized something and doesn’t resist the urge to let his lips twist up in a big smile. “We do! Abby! Isn’t it a coincidence that we’re right in front of her house?” He lets his smile drop. “Get out.” 

“I need to talk to Wymack about Neil,” Kevin says. 

“And how is that my problem?” Andrew asks but twists the key in the ignition and backs out of the driveway. He knows that Kevin would try to call a cab if he kicked him out, and with Kevin’s luck Riko Moriyama would be the one driving it. 

Andrew takes the turn that takes them to Wymack’s apartment complex and reaches out to turn the radio loud enough to drown out anything Kevin might say, because Andrew knows he’ll try to start a conversation and it will be about Exy, so Andrew stops it before it can even begin. And he doesn’t turn it off when Kevin pushes his door open and doesn’t say anything to Kevin when he gets out, just wiggles his fingers at him with a grin and drives off. 

There are less cars at Reddin when he arrives than when it’s the middle of the school year and Andrew takes that fact to his advantage and parks obnoxiously enough to cover two slots instead of just one. 

Reddin is split in half, with psychiatrics down the hall and out of sight and an array of doctors’ offices closer to the front. Andrew signs in at the front desk and goes down the hall into the direction of Bee’s office, passes the waiting room with its pale blue couches and a small label on the wall saying ‘Betsy Dobson’, before putting his fingertips to the dark door next to it and letting his nails drum against the wood. 

He hears a quiet “come in” and drags his fingers down the door until he can wrap his fingers around he handle and open it. Bee’s office is familiar to Andrew, from top to bottom, and it has a comforting effect that almost makes him want to reach out and tip over the bookshelf that’s against the wall and filled with books and glass figures. 

“Hello Andrew,” Bee says from where she’s standing by the desk in the corner, the one where only a small hot plate and kettle rest on. She smiles at him over her shoulder, her pale brown hair brushing her chin as she does and takes two steaming mugs into her hands. “Make yourself comfortable.” 

Andrew does, he plops down on the right side of the couch like always, and like always, some of the pillows arranged on it tumble onto the floor. He doesn’t pick them up, but takes his hot chocolate from where Bee puts it down on the table. 

“It’s good to see you again,” Bee says and sits down in her chair. “How have your last two weeks been?”

“How have yours been?” 

Bee just smiles at him, and it’s the same smile she always gives him when he does this. It’s soft and amused at the same time and it makes something inside of Andrew, something that always catches fire like gasoline, settle and cool down. 

“Very good, I did plant some tomatoes after you told me to get a hobby and they’re already coming along beautifully.” She takes a sip of her tea and Andrew lets his grin grow. “Have they not been pleasant?” 

“Wrong,” Andrew says and makes a buzzing noise. “Did you know that it’s very boring to watch three men shove each other around to run after a ball? Because it is.” 

“What about the puzzle?” Bee asks and Andrew pauses with his mug so close to his face that he can feel the warmth from it on his lips. “You mentioned it the last time, did you find the pieces you were missing?” 

“Oh,” Andrew says because, really, oh. It’s true that he mentioned a puzzle to refer to Neil and he knows Bee is aware he most likely isn’t talking about a literal one. “I really haven’t.” 

“Is it that you lost them? Or was there no time for you to work on it?” The mug clinks as Bee sets it down on the table. She folds her hands. “I imagine it can be difficult to solve something as time consuming as a puzzle, especially when it’s big, when you’re not finding the time to concentrate on it.”

The thing is, even if Kevin hadn’t frowned in disappointment at Neil’s every move on the court and even if he hadn’t been dragging around a dark cloud over his head every time he stepped off the court, there wouldn’t have been enough time for Andrew to figure Neil out. He avoids being completely alone with Andrew, which might be more survival instinct than intelligence, and Andrew’s cloudy mind hasn’t looked at anything Neil has done in the time that added to the already big, red flag he was waving around. 

“It isn’t a puzzle,” Andrew says after he takes another sip from his mug, the hot chocolate burning pleasantly when he swallows. Maybe he should’ve come to this realization sooner.

“Is that so?” 

“It’s an open book—,” he says, and thinks of Neil with his eyes finding every exit to a room in a matter of seconds and his duffle bag and the contact lenses and the way he looks at Kevin. There’s something so very obvious about him, and yet Andrew still can’t put his finger on what exactly it is. “—but written in a language I don’t speak.” 

***

A few days later Andrew finds himself in their stadium, the lights bright and blinding and in contrast to how dark it is outside, waiting for Kevin as he gets dressed and coming down from his meds. Everything appears dimmer without them, realer, and Andrew takes a breath and sits down on the stands, his fingers itching for a cigarette he knows he’s not allowed to have here. 

He leans forward as Kevin comes in, raises an eyebrow when Kevin looks at him expectantly and folds his arms across his knees. There’s something very annoying about the way Kevin still thinks Andrew will just suddenly fall in love with Exy and be as obsessed as Kevin is, and Andrew is sure that if he could, he would be incredibly annoyed and maybe throw one of the balls at Kevin. 

Andrew doesn’t watch as Kevin warms himself up with some laps and lets his gaze rest on the closed door of the court, the sound of a ball ricocheting off the wall loud enough to drown out the silence in his head. It disgusts him, really, how eager to run himself into the ground Kevin is when this sport is nothing but a short distraction to himself. How this can be that important to anyone, he doesn’t know. 

The quiet sound of the back door getting pushed open has Andrew’s attention zeroing on the entrance and he doesn’t know who he expects, but he isn’t surprised at all when he sees Neil walking near the inner court. Though him being dressed in his pajama pants and a shirt is, infuriatingly, a surprise. 

Neil has his eyes on how Kevin systematically heaves the balls from the bucket next to him against the wall, his eyes big and his face otherwise blank. It doesn’t take him long to notice Andrew’s eyes on him (maybe he senses it, like Andrew senses when someone is staring at him), and he doesn’t turn when he asks, “Won’t you play with him?” 

“No,” Andrew says. 

“I think he’d benefit more if you did.” 

What would or wouldn’t benefit in relation to Exy really doesn’t interest Andrew. “And?” 

That gets Neil to move. He turns, his gaze dragging along the empty home bench a few stands down from where Andrew is sitting and looks up. 

Andrew watches as Neil watches him and as his eyes, darker than they usually are, flick over the baggy t-shirt and sweatpants Andrew’s wearing (and where looks that calculating usually feel like cold, slimy tentacles running up his spine to wrap around his throat, Neil’s gaze only feels like the brush of a feather and Andrew hates it) before they land on his armbands. 

He tucks two fingers into the band on his left arm and slides free one of his knives. Andrew pushes it back under the dark, soft cloth after he gives Neil a few seconds to look at it and the metal of the long, slim blade glints in the overhead lights. 

“Is that your slow attempt at suicide or do you actually have sheathes built in those?” Neil asks. 

“Yes,” Andrew says, because he does have sheathes in them but doesn’t feel like giving an explanation. He doesn’t feel anything at all, actually. 

“That’s not the one you tried to cut Nicky with,” Neil says and he’s right. “How many knives do you carry?” 

“Enough.” Enough to always be ready to fight more than he already does to protect what’s important. 

“What happens when a referee catches you with a weapon on the court?” Neil asks. “I think that’s a little more serious than a red card. You’d probably get arrested, and they might even suspend our entire team until they think they can trust us again,” he adds, because, apparently, he cares about this sport as much as Kevin does, which means to a nauseating extent. “Then what?” 

“I’d grieve forever.” 

“Why do you hate this game so much?” 

Andrew pushes out a sigh. “I don’t care enough about Exy to hate it. It’s just slightly less boring than living is,—” without his drugs, that is. But he can’t pretend that he will be rushing from high to high forever, not that he wants to when he dreads taking the pills and being thrown into the world with a smile decorating his face. “— so I put up with it for now.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

Yeah, Andrew doesn’t doubt that someone who has known him for less than a month will understand when not even his own brother can or tries to. “That’s not my problem.” 

“Isn’t it fun?” Neil asks and Andrew knows that if it were a different time of the day, he would laugh in Neil’s face because doesn’t that sound awfully familiar? 

“Someone else asked me that same thing two years ago,” Andrew says, thinking back to Kevin Day standing in front of him and imperiously looking down with Riko Moriyama at his side, both covered from head to toe in black as if trying to personificate the birds their team was named after. “Should I tell you what I told him? I said no. Something as pointless as this game is can never be fun.” 

“Pointless,” Neil echoes, his eyes still on Andrew’s. “But you have real talent.” 

“Flattery is uninteresting and gets you nowhere.” 

“I’m just stating facts. You’re selling yourself short. You could be something if only you’d try.” 

“You be something,” he says and smiles at Neil, small and cold, and doesn’t feel any joy at doing so. “Kevin says you’ll be a champion. Four years and you’ll go pro. Five years and you’ll be Court. He promised the school board,” he says, and it’s the truth because Andrew has absolutely no reason to lie to Neil, not about this. “He argued until they signed off on you.” 

And that was a sight to see, Kevin arguing with Wymack and then the higher ups for someone he had never had a simple conversation with, someone he didn’t know would even want to come and play at Palmetto. It was also incredibly obnoxious. 

“He—what?” Neil stares at him, his brown eyes wide, as if trying to make sense of Andrew’s words. Andrew isn’t surprised, with how Kevin has criticized Neil the past two weeks you could think Kevin couldn’t stand to be on the same court as Neil. 

“Then Kevin finally got the okay to sign you and you hit the ground running,” Andrew says and decides to take a leap. “Curious that a man with so much potential, who has so much fun, who could ‘be something’ wouldn’t want any of it. Why is that?” 

“You’re lying,” Neil says, of course not answering and only pouring more gasoline of the burning curiosity inside of Andrew and Andrew feels an itch under his skin looking at him, light enough not to scratch but not light enough to pretend it isn’t there at all. “Kevin hates me.” 

“Or you hate him,” Andrew says, even if he highly doubts it. “I can’t decide. Your loose ends aren’t adding up.” 

“I’m not a math problem.” 

“But I’ll still solve you.” 

No, Neil might not be a math problem, but he is still a puzzle with missing pieces and pieces that can’t and won’t fit, and Andrew will continue to poke until they fit, he will learn the language this open book is written in and then decide to either put it on a shelf or light it up in flames. 

When Neil turns away without another word, Andrew looks at Kevin to see him gathering his balls, finally finished with practice. As he starts for the door, Andrew gets up and his shoes tap quietly on the stairs as he walks down to the inner court. 

“You are a conundrum,” Andrew tells Neil. 

“Thank you.” 

“No, thank you,” Andrew says as he slips past Neil without a look back, the itch still present under his skin. “I need a new toy to play with.” 

“I’m not a toy.”

“I guess we’ll see.” 

Kevin looks right past Andrew to Neil as soon as his helmet is off. “Why are you here?” 

“I wanted to practice,” Neil says and Andrew looks at his pajama pants and then away again. 

“As if that will help you any.” 

Andrew watches Neil as Kevin takes off his gloves and arm guards, the way his body seems to be frozen for a second before it deflates and a thought forms inside of his head but he takes Kevin’s stuff before it can. He snaggs Kevin’s helmet by the safety grating across the front and then just watches him as Kevin collects his racquet again. 

“Andrew?” he asks when he holds it. 

“Ready already,” Andrew says, as if Kevin can’t see him standing right in front of him, and starts for the locker room without another word or look to Neil. He does wonder, however, as Kevin showers and his fingers pull out his lighter to play with it, about what Neil had said. 

_I’m not a math problem_. It’s not that he’s wrong, Andrew thinks. Math problems, as difficult as they can be and are, and no matter how impossible they look, always have a solution. They make sense, when you take them apart brick by brick, and you understand. And the thing about Neil is that so far nothing about him really makes any sense. At least not yet. 

Andrew lets his lighter click and almost burns the top of his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very small warning for a brief mention of riko

On Sunday, Andrew’s car is full — their bean bag chairs are thrown into the trunk and their bags with their clothes and the rest of their things stuffed between them. They are required to move into campus since their practices are scheduled to start the day after. It’s to give them time to get settled in the athletes’ dormitory and while Andrew doesn’t need it, he does appreciate being in their suite again instead of Abby’s house. 

They don’t have anyone to say goodbye to, with Abby out of the house and at the Court with Wymack and Andrew wishes he was a fly sitting on the wall in her office, to hear and see what he hasn’t yet — but the thought is gone as fast as it appeared, his attention catching on Nicky locking the door behind them and shoving the door under the doormat. 

Andrew rolls down all four windows after getting into the driver’s seat, the heat pressing into his body like an invisible wall, and turns up the radio not two seconds after pulling away from the house when Kevin opens his mouth and goes, “Practice—”

Coincidentally, the music coming out of the radio also drowns out Nicky’s sorry attempts at conversation with Aaron, who looks down at his phone.

Most of Palmetto State’s buildings, offices, and dormitories are inside a giant loop known as Perimeter Road. Fox Tower is one of the few exceptions, if only because a stray hill forces Perimeter to hug the campus green near the clock tower. 

The parking lot is out back and empty when they arrive, not that it’s a surprise to Andrew. Kevin had mentioned Wymack wouldn’t let Neil move in until Matt Boyd, their starting backliner with way too much height and spiked hair that only adds on to it, arrives, and Andrew has to admit that that is smart considering Neil’s slippery person. 

He pulls into a parking slot without slowing down and a laugh bubbles out of his mouth at the pained groans Nicky and Aaron let out in the back after getting slammed into the door. The heat glues Andrew’s armbands and his shirt to his body but he ignores it in favor of pulling a cigarette out of his pack and lighting it as his cousin and brother open the trunk to grab their stuff. 

Andrew doesn’t really feel like helping them carry up the beanbag chairs, not that Nicky or Aaron would expect him to, but Kevin walks up to him with a frown on his face. 

And then he actually snips his fingers in Andrew’s face like the obnoxious asshole he is. 

“Kevin—” Nicky says, his eyes wide and arms full with his bag and Aaron looks up, curious. 

“You could help, you know,” Kevin says, which is hypocritical considering that he isn’t helping any more than Andrew is. 

“Oh, but Kevin,” Andrew says and throws down his cigarette, not caring enough to grind it out under shoe. He takes his own bag from the trunk and lets Kevin’s drop to the floor before locking the car. “I am helping plenty, don’t you see?” He plays with the strap of his bag for a second, then turns away and makes for the door. 

Even with the beanbag chairs pressed as small as possible, Nicky and Aaron won’t be able to fit into the elevator, so Andrew clicks the button for the third floor and lets the doors slide shut almost all the way before he sees Kevin speed walking towards him and puts his hand up, sighing. 

“Thank you, Andrew!” Andrew says in a mocking, high voice when Kevin just leans against the metal wall of the elevator and takes deep breaths as it begins its ascent. “Fuck off, Kevin!” He taps a finger on the dark fabric over his shoulder. “I’m not quite convinced that you should be that out of breath after walking a few feet. Are you sure you’re twenty-one and an athlete?” 

Kevin glares at him and Andrew snorts as the elevator doors open. 

Their suite is room 317 and it looks exactly the same way they left it at the end of last year. A kitchenette is off to one side right inside the door and the front room is a spacious living room. Three bare desks line the walls, and Andrew already plans on claiming the one closest to the window that overlooks the parking lot. A short hall dead-ends at the bathroom and branches off into the bedroom where two beds are bunked against one wall and a third bed is raised chest-height against the other to fit shelving and dressers under it. There is only one closet, but hanging dividers hang off the empty pole. 

Andrew immediately claims the bunk bed to the far left, the same one he had the year before, and bans Nicky and Aaron to the other one. Kevin takes the single bed and immediately starts unpacking his clothes. 

Nicky and Aaron have already put down the bean bag chairs when he wanders back into the living room, and are figuring out the mechanics of their video console. It doesn’t do anything to hold Andrew’s attention, though, so he opens the window, hops onto the desk and smokes. 

It doesn’t take more than five minutes for Kevin to walk out of the bedroom with some magazine, no doubt about exy, in his hand and it doesn’t take any longer than twenty for another car to join his on the parking lot. 

Next to his sleek black car, Matt’s truck, a monstrous blue thing, looks like it could eat a hole through the building and deliver them directly into their dorm. It’s impressive to watch how many things Matt manages to pull out of his truck, but not even the ridiculous height difference between him and Neil are what Andrew focuses on. No, Neil and his tight grip on the ratty duffle bag are what really hold Andrew’s attention. 

He wonders, as he takes a drag from his cigarette, what would fall out if he opened it all the way and turned it upside down? 

Andrew watches as they start to carry Matt’s stuff inside, and keeps watching because something about Neil is awfully interesting and it’s not the fact that he keeps holding onto his bag every time they walk up and down. 

Eventually, the last of Matt’s stuff disappears with them and Andrew holds out one of his hands in the direction of Nicky and Aaron. He starts to snip his fingers impatiently (and a little bit like Kevin earlier) when they don’t notice it immediately. 

“Nicky, picky, frickey, gimmicky, tricky, mickey,” he sing songs and Nicky’s head snaps up so fast that Andrew almost thinks that he’s going to give himself whiplash. “Remote.” 

Nicky throws it over to him and Andrew turns the volume of the TV down. He listens to a door closing down the call and focuses on his cousin when he doesn’t hear the sound of a lock sliding into place. 

“You want to stand by the door.” He nods and takes a drag of his cigarette before throwing it away. “And you really want to talk to Neil when he walks by, don’t you?” 

“I—” Nicky starts and then something funny happens with the expression on his face as he seems to realize who he’s talking to before he puts down his controller. “Yes, sure, of course.” 

Andrew remembers Wymack muttering something to Abby when he’d come over the day before, about Matt arriving before the others, who were flying into South Carolina. Andrew doesn’t hope for anything, has stopped hoping for stuff almost immediately after starting it a few years ago, but there is something burning inside of him at the thought of Neil going somewhere without his bag. 

He doesn’t have to wait too long until Nicky opens the door. 

“Hey stranger,” Nicky says. “What’d you think of Matt?” 

“He seems fine,” Andrew hears Neil say and it sounds like he doesn’t stop when he does. 

“He is fine,” Nicky calls after him with a laugh and doesn’t close the door all the way when he makes his way back to continue his game with Aaron. 

From where he’s sitting, Andrew can see the moment Neil makes it outside and starts running. Without his duffle bag slung over his shoulder, which is awfully thoughtful of Neil. And very convenient. 

“Oh,” Andrew says and slips off his desk, and then right out of the room without another word to the others — not that they’d really expect him to say anything else. It’s nothing for him to pick the lock to room 321, just a matter of leaning down for thirty seconds and twisting one of his knives and a hair pin left and right before the door opens. 

He lets it fall shut quietly behind him and takes a look around. The suite doesn’t look much different than the one he shares with his family and Kevin, and he runs his eyes over every surface, even plays with the thought of lifting one of the cushions on the sofa. 

But if Andrew were Neil, if he was as paranoid as Neil seems to be, he wouldn’t put something as important as the ratty bag seems to be in plain sight or where it could be easily found. 

So Andrew ignores the kitchen and bathroom completely and enters the bedroom. All of the beds are bare and Andrew half heartedly lifts the mattress of the single bed before looking at the drawer. When it takes a little work for Andrew to get the drawer open, he knows he found something, and indeed, when he manages to pull it out without damaging it, Neil’s duffle bag looks back at him. 

“Oh, hello there! Isn’t it good to see you again!”

Now Andrew isn’t counting the minutes since Neil left but he’s certain that he can’t be gone for a long while, especially without the knowledge where exactly he went, and he knows he can’t spend as much time as he wants to inspect all of Neil’s stuff. Andrew drops the bag to the floor and follows, his legs folded, before unzipping it and folding the flap out of the way. 

The few shirts Neil has are folded neatly and all in the same way and Andrew makes a mental note to put them back like that. Andrew hums quietly as he takes them out and drops the shirts to the floor, not caring enough to see if they’re still put together. He puts his hand inside the duffle bag again (desperate to find something on Neil, anything that either erases the red flags swinging back and forth in the wind of Andrew’s mind or that makes him make more sense), wraps his fingers around something that feels like plastic and paper, and lifts it before opening it. 

Andrew blinks. Once. Twice. And feels everything in him (his thoughts and his breath) freeze and stop as he takes in what he’s looking at. There are plastic sheet protectors stuffed full of newspaper clippings and photographs of Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama. 

And Andrew doesn’t like this. No, he doesn’t like this at all. 

He turns the page, turns another few pages and there’s space where the paper is glued together and Andrew squeezes his fingers inside easily enough. And he pulls at something that feels soft and familiar, a hundred dollar bill, and then swiftly turns the binder and watches as more and more money falls out. 

Weird, he has a moment to think, how someone with as much money as Neil apparently owns doesn’t buy more than ten shirts or a new duffle bag. 

Andrew shoves the money back inside, careful not to rip anything and keeps turning pages until he stumbles over the prescription from an ophthalmologist. It looks incredibly fake and Andrew scans it quickly. It shouldn’t surprise him that Neil is wearing colored contacts but it does and it has him grinding his teeth and returning to the front of the binder. To all the pictures and newspaper cutouts.

It’s not a crush, Andrew thinks as he closes the binder that resembles a stalker journal more than anything else. He drops it back into the bag, and folds the shirts he dropped in the same way he found them to cover the binder. It doesn’t take him more than two minutes to put everything back and leave the dorm. He crouches down in front of the door and the sound of the lock sliding back into place is what kickstarts Andrew’s thoughts again. 

He makes his way back into his own dorm and locks the door behind him, doesn’t look at his cousin, brother or Kevin when he sits back on his desk, lights another cigarette. No, it’s definitely not a celebrity crush or a normal one. Nothing can really justify having hundreds of photographs of Kevin and the captain of the Raven’s, or at least nothing that lessens the problem Neil was before Andrew saw them. If Neil had a celebrity crush on Kevin, maybe having some photographs would be able to be explained — even the newspaper cut outs. 

Neil is obsessed with exy, maybe it would’ve made sense for someone as in love with the sport as Kevin to look up to him and collect stuff mentioning him. 

But it isn’t just Kevin and that’s what makes Andrew pause. He has a perfect memory, he doesn’t have the luck to be able to forget, and that’s how he knows, how he can say with absolute conviction that Neil hasn’t mentioned Riko Moriyama a single time since he slammed an exy racquet in his gut. 

It makes no sense, not that anything about Neil made sense before seeing that binder, but it changed him from a problem to a dangerous problem because there’s only so many explanations that don’t start with an s and end with alker that can have, and one of them, the one that seems very much likely now, is that Neil might know Riko Moriyama, or worse, have contact to him. And that—

—well, Andrew can’t have that, can he? Especially not considering that he promised Kevin to protect him and this possible connection could just endanger that promise. 

“I think,” Andrew says, after he has watched Matt and the girls arrive and walk inside the building and smoked through three cigarettes, with an idea forming in his mind, “we should definitely go out on Friday.” 

“What?” Kevin asks from where he’s still reading his magazine. Or maybe he’s reading another one. Andrew doesn’t doubt that he has more than ten in his bag, ready to be read at all times. 

“With Neil,” Andrew adds and tilts his head to the side as he ignores the stare Kevin levels at the side of his head as easily as he would with a small fly circling around his head. “Oh, yes, I think Neil should learn to let loose a little.” 

Nicky whoops from where his eyes are glued to the game he and Aaron are playing and Aaron mumbles a curse. 

Andrew watches Neil come back when he’s lighting another cigarette, and clenches his teeth with anger running hot through his veins before the fog of his medication carries the emotion away. 

And then, suddenly, the door to their door opens and Neil stands in the doorway. There’s an expression on his face, anger that Andrew recognizes as if he’s looking into a mirror is written all over it—from the narrowed brown eyes to the wrinkle between his eyebrows and the frown nestling at the corner of his mouth. It makes the corners of Andrew’s own mouth turn up and he flicks his cigarette out of the window. “Try again, Neil. You’re in the wrong room!” 

Aaron pauses the game with a stab of his finger that Andrew sees out of the corner of his eye since he’s not taking his eyes off Neil. “We locked that,” he says in German, and it’s not quite a question. Andrew is sure all three of them know and heard him lock it. 

“Last I checked,” Nicky answers. He switches back to English and offers Neil a friendly, “Hey, sounds like Matt’s back. You meet Dan and Renee yet?” 

Neil glares at him, and even though he still looks like a kitten with its fur raised, it’s like Andrew is seeing him for the first time and like someone cleaned a window that has been dirty for far too long to show what’s hidden on the other side. And then Neil looks at Kevin and snaps something in a language that Andrew might not understand but can easily recognize as French. 

Whatever he’s saying to Kevin sounds angry and Andrew has no doubt that Neil is angry, even though the question as to how he knows someone went through his things when Andrew put everything back the way he found it is burning inside of him. Andrew imagines that he would possibly have the same reaction if he had a binder like Neil does. 

Andrew leans forward on his desk. Neil speaking french is another piece of the puzzle that makes him up and yet another one that Andrew cannot seem to make fit. “Wow, another one of Neil’s many talents. How many can one man have?” 

Neil doesn’t respond to Andrew. 

Where Neil sounds angry and snaps at Kevin, Kevin sounds bored out of his mind when he answers. That is, until Kevin’s face suddenly goes white and Andrew wraps his hand around the wood of the desk, even as an amusement sparks alive inside of him. 

Neil says something again that has Kevin out of his chair so fast that his chair knocks over. And then Neil bolts and slams the door shut and Kevin actually follows. 

Interesting, Andrew thinks as Kevin yanks the door open. 

“What the fuck did you call me?” Kevin demands when Andrew makes his way slowly to the door. 

It’s terribly amusing, seeing Kevin hold Neil against the wall and Neil clawing at Kevin’s wrist but not nearly as amusing as it could have been, now that Andrew has looked through Neil’s stuff and has an idea as to what he’s possibly hiding. 

“Get off him, Day,” Matt snarls as he enters the hallway and wraps an arm around Kevin’s throat. He wretches Kevin’s head back at a dangerous angle. 

“Woah, woah, calm down,” Nicky says somewhere behind Andrew at the same moment Andrew puts his hand on his armband. “Come on, Matt.” 

Andrew is content enough to watch at first as Kevin lets go on Neil with one hand and drives an elbow in Matt’s ribs. Matt just grunts and tightens his grip, which forces Kevin to release Neil entirely. Kevin somehow manages to wiggle free from Matt two steps later and swings at Matt. 

And then Matt punches Kevin hard enough to send him sprawling and Andrew moves. He’s between them before Matt has the chance to go after Kevin again and his fogged mind makes him smile at Matt when all he wants to do is knock his teeth out. 

Maybe Matt can either see the murder in Andrews eyes or he really did learn his lesson last year and takes a step back before sending Neil a worried look. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Dan Wilds asks them as she moves up alongside Matt, her expression tight with anger. “It’s our first day back. Why are we fighting already?” 

“Technically, we never left,” Andrew says, because it’s the truth, “and Neil’s been here a couple of weeks, so it’s your first day back, not ours.” He leans to one side, looking past them to Dan’s roommate. “Hello, Renee. About time!” 

Dan doesn’t give Renee a chance to answer, which is a shame because she is the only one out of their group Andrew actually likes. “Explanation now, Andrew.” 

“You’re looking at me like it’s my fault.” It’s not completely unreasonable, but Andrew feels like a rubber band stretched too far and so he wags his finger at her. “Look again, why don’t you?” He points at Neil and then their dorm. “Neil’s at our room, which meant he brought the fight to us. Dan, your bias is cruel and unprofessional.” 

Dan turns on Neil, her brown hair cut mercilessly short and disheveled but still moving when she does. “What’s the problem?”

“There isn’t one,” Neil says and then shrugs when Dan jerks a hand between him and Kevin. “Just a difference of opinions. Nothing that matters.” 

Since both Neil and Kevin had been snapping in French at each other, Andrew can’t even say this with full confidence but he’s still sure that that’s a lie. He looks at Neil for a second, still frowning and his dark eyes focused on their caption with his equally dark hair a mess. 

“We’re getting along splendidly,” Andrew tells them, another idea forming in his head. He needs to let Neil know that they’re going out on Friday, after all. And Andrew will get answers out of him one way or another. “Neil even agreed to ride to the stadium with us.” 

“Oh, did he?” Dan asks with skepticism in her voice. Oh, so very smart, their captain. 

“Yes,” Neil says when they all look at him and Andrew doesn’t resist the urge to let his smile grow bigger. “I figured Matt’s truck would be full, so I took them up on their offer.” 

Dan opens her mouth but Matt touches her arm and she closes it again. And then she glares at Andrew, as if Matt’s truck being full or Neil agreeing was his fault, before shaking her head. “I don’t know who started this, but the fighting stops now.” 

“Always the optimist,” Andrew says and lifts two of his fingers to salute at Neil. “See you soon.” And then he says, because he remembers Neil bolting after meeting him for the first time in Millport, and he remembers the speed at which Neil took off earlier, “don’t run off, okay?” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Neil says and Andrew hopes, for Neil more than himself, that it’s the truth. 

Andrew isn’t done trying to figure him out, after all. No, he’s only just starting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for the f slur from seth 
> 
> other than that, a part of the conversation between wymack and andrew at the end of this chapter is from nora’s tumblr — and even if i changed it here and there, i can’t take the full credit for it. 
> 
> please enjoy!

Andrew goes back into their dorm after that, listens to the click of their door closing and Aaron locking it before resuming his earlier position by the window. He turns his head to look outside with a cigarette between his fingers and the smoke twirling in the air in front of him. The shadows that the sun throws stretch across the asphalt and Andrew watches them grow from one shape into another until Kevin’s phone rings at five, letting everyone know that Seth and Allison are on their way to the campus from the airport. 

“Nicky,” Andrew says when they leave their dorm and he locks the door twice behind them. His cousin looks up when he’s done, shoving his keys into his pocket. “Collect Neil, will you? I’m afraid he’ll get lost on the way to the cars without a guide by his side and that would be terribly sad.” Especially considering the fact that Andrew didn’t have a chance to really poke around in his brain yet. 

“Yeah okay,” Nicky says and sounds like he wants to add more but Andrew turns away, already bored with him and makes his way outside with Kevin and Aaron on his heels. 

The temperature outside has only risen since they arrived at Fox Tower earlier and Andrew’s skin feels like it’s on fire under his dark shirt and armbands, but Andrew doesn’t let it show as he unlocks the car to let Kevin and Aaron in, with Kevin in the passenger seat and Aaron in the back, and then leans against the side of the car with his eyes on the entrance. 

Andrew’s thoughts jump around in his head, he views the world through a kaleidoscope of colors due to his medication and he can’t wait to look at Neil without them clouding his mind. With a clear head to push and pull at Neil until he decides what to do with him, and to hopefully get rid of the itch that’s been sitting right underneath his skin, the electricity that has been running through his veins, since the moment he met their new player. 

It doesn’t take too long for Nicky and Neil to exit the building and he watches them come closer until Neil stops in front of him. Nicky keeps going around the car to the driver’s seat and immediately gets in. 

“You waited for us,” Andrew says with feigned surprise and it greatly irritates him to have to look up three inches to meet Neil’s eyes. “A liar who practices occasional honesty. Clever. Keeps people guessing. Very effective. I would know. I do it myself, you see,” Andrew continues and it’s not really the truth but not a lie either. He is honest when people ask him directly, not that that happens too often — or ever. “Come on, then. After you.” 

Neil climbs into the backseat without saying anything in return and Andrew is only a little disappointed. For someone who was as mad as he had been not even two hours ago and who had snapped viciously at Kevin, he seems to be weirdly tame now. Andrew can’t wait to see how long that will last and follows him in, sandwiching Neil between himself and Aaron. 

As soon as Andrew yanks his door shut, Nicky peels out of the parking lot as if he wants to take the asphalt with him. Neil lifts his arm as if searching for his seatbelt, but Andrew can feel something digging into his thigh and he really doesn’t feel like moving. He guesses he appreciates knowing Neil wants to be safe in a car, but he trusts Nicky enough with his car, and more importantly the people inside, not to think he will crash the car.

Andrew sprawls against Neil’s side, ignoring his own muscles tensing in response to the contact. “After everything we’ve done for you, you have to start a fight with us,” he says. It’s only a little hypocritical considering that Andrew broke into his dorm and looked through his things, but Andrew thinks he’s very much in the right thinking back to how Neil behaves. “For shame, Neil.” 

“You started this fight a month ago,” Neil says. “If you want it to stop, leave me alone.” 

Leaving Neil alone is something Andrew cannot and will not do, but he doesn’t say that. “I like fighting,” he says instead. “It’s troublesome when Coach and Abby and the other busybodies start crying foul. Show some consideration.” 

“You show some consideration and stay out of my things.” 

“How do you know it was us, anyway?” Andrew asks and wonders, in the same second, if Neil has possibly even more stuff, more pictures and documents, that would mold a new piece for the puzzle. “Maybe it was Matt,” he says and almost laughs. “Innocent until proven guilty fails on an Exy court.” 

“I haven’t heard you deny it yet.” 

“You wouldn’t believe me anyway.” 

“I don’t believe anything you say.” 

Ah and that--that’s smarter than anything Neil has possibly said to him so far. Andrew wouldn’t call himself a liar, he doesn’t outright lie to people’s faces, he just doesn’t tell the whole truth and decides to keep the rest hidden and unsaid, locked away until necessary. 

“Believe this, Neil: you can’t put a leash on me,” Andrew says and presses himself harder against Neil’s side. “Don’t think you can, okay? And don’t be stupid enough to tell other people you will. It’s not safe. You’ll make me want to break you.” 

He doesn’t say that Neil already does make Andrew want to break him, now that he’s seen the binder more than when he’d seen Neil sober. He makes Andrew want to drop him to the hard floor like a porcelain vase slipping through his fingers and breaking into a hundred glittering, sharp pieces. 

“You?” Neil says. “You can’t.” 

Andrew’s smile curves wider at those words. “Ohhh, that sounds like a challenge,” he says, because it does, and Andrew is not interested in backing down. “Mother may I?” 

“Your mother’s dead. I don’t think she cares what you do.” 

“I know for sure she never did,” Andrew says, thinking of the sound of metal grinding and being bent and twisted, remembers waking up in the hospital and thinking, _still there_. “Well, she had to take offense to the dying part, but I thought that was rather fun. But you’re right.” He slaps the heel of his palm against his temple, the promise of Friday whispering in his head like the echo of something falling in an empty room. “I do as I please. Consider this your official invite, suicidal wretch. I’m bringing you to Columbia with us this Friday.” 

Andrew lets go of Neil, fire alive under his skin where they touched, and holds up five fingers. He smiles at Neil through them. “You’ll have five days to meet the others. Five days of practices and all of Coach’s ridiculous bonding nonsense.” He puts his hand back in his lap. “Then it’s our turn on Friday. You can get to know us off the court.” 

“We’ll take you out to dinner,” Nicky says over his shoulder, as if all of them consider ice cream dinner instead of just Andrew. And then Nicky goes on to share half of their life story, apparently, “We used to live in Columbia, so we know all the best spots. Even better, we’ve got a free place to crash so we don’t have to worry about driving back drunk or exhausted. It’ll be a blast.” 

Oh, it’ll be a blast alright. Just not in the way Nicky means it or Neil probably understands it.

“I don’t drink or dance,” Neil says. 

“That’s all right,” Andrew says. He wasn’t able to imagine Neil doing something as absurd as dancing anyway. Though it would’ve been interesting to see someone as twitchy and small as Neil in a crowd of people, moving to music. “Kevin doesn’t dance anymore and I never do. You can drink soda and talk to us while the others make fools of themselves. We can’t get through this year with this little misunderstanding between us, so we’ll take a night off and fix it.” 

‘Fix’ is a very strange choice of words considering all Andrew wants to do is find out if Neil is an actual thread or not, if his connection to Riko Moriyama is recent or not, if he’s here to find out information about Kevin and to feed it to the Raven, before Andrew decides to either get rid of him or let him stay. He knows by the way Neil looks at him that he thinks the choice of words is strange too, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“If I go,” Neil says slowly, and isn’t it interesting how Andrew expected him to be the first to give ground, “promise me you’ll never touch anything of mine ever again.” 

“So possessive,” Andrew says, but he understands the need to guard what is his. 

“Of course I am,” Neil says. “Everything I own fits in one bag.” 

Andrew considers this. He doesn’t think that’s the whole reason; there was more in the binder that Andrew didn’t look at but he’s fine with letting it go with one of his mad grins. For now, that is. “Okay. One night with us, and no more break-ins. Friday night will be fun.” 

He doesn’t say that it’ll be more fun for him than Neil, of course. 

They reach the stadium a full minute ahead of their teammates and wait on the curb for Matt’s truck to arrive. Andrew’s fingers twitch for a cigarette and he tugs at his armbands to ignore it. As soon as the upperclassmen park and get out, Andrew points at his right to Neil. 

“Look, one piece.” 

Matt immediately starts coming closer and his eyes move over Neil to look for a hidden injury. “Are you bleeding anywhere?” 

“Nowhere vital,” Neil says. 

Renee, always the one to search for peace, intervenes before the other upperclassmen have a chance to say more. “Why don’t we wait inside for Seth and Allison? We’ve got a while and it’s a little warm out here.” 

“Maybe they’ll get in a crash and won’t make it,” Nicky says hopefully. 

“Really, Nicky,” Renee says. “That’s a little inappropriate, don’t you think?” 

She says it gently, like the saint she pretends to be, and with a smile on her face, but Andrew can feel the rebuke. It’s subtler but deadlier than the mild, dirty looks Matt and Dan are sending Nicky. It seems as if she is sweetly disappointed in Nicky, but Andrew knows it’s not why Nicky ends up dropping his gaze and giving an uncomfortable shrug. It’s because Nicky has seen the bruises, few that it were, on Andrew’s skin after one of their sparring sessions. 

“Let’s go,” Dan says and leads the way into the locker room. 

Wymack and Abby are perched on the entertainment center in the lounge when they arrive, and Andrew doesn’t bother with a greeting in their direction. He sits down on one of the couches, his left side pressed against the arm and Kevin on his right with enough space between them to fit an encyclopedia or two. He eyes Neil, who sits down in a chair that makes it very much possible for him to keep an eye on everyone and blows out a breath. 

Paranoid, he thinks. 

It takes almost twenty minutes for Seth and Allison to arrive, and Andrew doesn’t look up when the door bangs open. Seth Gordon is the first to enter the room, his loud footsteps and huffy breath is pretty hard not to remember even for people who don’t have Andrew’s flawless memory. He scowls at all of them, not happy to see his teammates, and levels a glare at Neil before throwing himself into one of the open chairs. 

Allison Reynolds follows shortly after. She stops in the doorway, glaring at Seth and looking from head to toe like the daughter of billionaires that she is. Andrew can’t stand her — not that he likes any of his teammates more than that. 

“Nice to see you two, too,” Wymack says dryly. 

Allison ignores him and nods at Abby. “You survived the summer.” And she definitely means having to house Andrew and his family. 

“By the grace of God,” Abby says. “It doesn’t get easier.” 

Andrew wacks his fingers at her when she sweeps the room with a look, amusement bubbling up inside of him when her lips curl a little in scorn. Then her gaze settles on Neil and stays there. “I’m going to sit with you,” she says. 

She crosses the room, the clacking of her heels on the ground remind Andrew of a ticking clock, and perches on the arm of Neil’s chair. There isn’t really room for her there, she has to lean against Neil to keep her balance and when she throws her arm around his shoulders, Neil tenses. 

It’s nothing really noticeable, just a slight widening of his eyes and clenching of his jaw before he relaxes again with his eyes on Allison’s face, but it’s noticeable enough that Andrew notices. Oh, Andrew really wouldn’t be sad if Allison slipped and fell on her ass. 

“I can move if you want to sit here,” Neil says. 

“No, this is fine.” Allison smiles smugly at Seth who glowers at them across the room and Andrew really, really wouldn’t be sad to see her fall. Allison looks back at Wymack and flicks her fingers. “This will be quick, won’t it? It was a long flight and I’m exhausted.” 

“You’re the ones slowing it down,” Wymack says and Andrew tunes him out when he goes to introduce Neil. His eyes stay on Neil for one second longer, taking in his straight posture and blank look, before looking at the ceiling. 

His thoughts jump to Friday and he starts to make a mental checklist. Neil doesn’t own clothes that won’t make him stand out in Eden’s Twilight, even if he has enough money to own several outfits that would. Kevin is too much of an asshole to consider lending anyone a shirt, not that Neil would fit in it without looking like a child. Aaron and Andrew are both smaller than Neil, and Andrew is much broader in the shoulders, so that won’t do either. 

Andrew doesn’t even have to do the brain work to know no one’s pants will fit Neil either. 

“..Questions, comments, concerns? Anyone?” Wymack asks when Andrew blinks himself back into the present. 

Seth points at Neil and says angrily, “I’m fucking concerned—” 

“All right, then. Moving on. Abby?” Abby gets down from her perch and hands out stapled packs of paper. 

Andrew takes it from her but doesn’t bother to glance at it. He thinks he can spare an hour in the next two days to drive into the city and buy clothes that fit Neil. His clothing size, glanced at when Andrew removed them from his duffle bag, is branded into Andrew’s mind forever. 

“Same boring forms as always,” Wymack says. “Sign your name on the appropriate lines and give these back to me first thing tomorrow. You can’t practice until I have these on file.” 

While Wymack goes on to talk about practices, Andrew only listens with one ear and considers not filling out the form to see what kind of reaction Kevin would have to that. But the idea is gone as soon as it’s there, nothing the striker does could be interesting enough to hold his attention longer than a second. 

“Physicals get done before you leave today. Andrew, you’re first. Seth, you’re going second. The rest of you draw straws or something. It’s up to you. Don’t even think of leaving before you’ve seen Abby.” He gives Andrew and his lot the evil eye. 

And he understands why he does, he doesn’t think anyone has forgotten what happened with Matt last year but he also knows that no one understands why it _had_ to happen — not that anyone tried to understand. But Andrew plays innocent anyway, even if it doesn’t fool anyone. 

Abby goes and stands behind Kevin. Wymack hesitates before reaching for the papers stacked face down at his side and that’s what makes Andrew tune in completely. “Last order of business from me today is our schedule.” 

“Already?” Matt asks. “It’s only June.” 

“We don’t have dates yet, but the ERC’s made some changes that will make this spring look like a cakewalk. They’re notifying the coaches in our district one by one to try and control the fallout. It has potential to get ugly.” 

Last year had already been pretty shit, even for a team like the Foxes. But Andrew knows that it can always get worse, that there’s always a tiny chance that the tables turn and the ground splits in two and swallows you whole until you’re trapped with nowhere to go, invisible shackles on your wrists and ankles keeping you in one place. 

Dan, Matt and Nicky go on about what exactly happened last year, nothing that Andrew considers overly bad, but he does snap his head around when Seth opens his mouth. 

“Fuck you, fag,” he says and Andrew grinds his teeth, feels hot anger spark from somewhere deep inside of him until it gets washed away by the cloud surrounding Andrew’s thoughts. 

“I don’t like that word,” Andrew says, his teeth pressing together for a second. “Don’t use it.” 

The ‘or else’ goes by unsaid but Andrew knows everyone heard and registered it anyway. 

Seth sneers, and it makes him look even uglier than he is. “I would say ‘fuck you, freak’, but then you wouldn’t know which one of you I was talking to.” 

“Don’t talk to us at all,” Aaron says and Andrew is almost surprised by his brother actually speaking up. “You never have anything useful to say.” 

“Enough,” Wymack says. “We don’t have time for petty bullshit this year. We’ve got a new school in our district.”

There is space between Kevin and Andrew’s bodies, but even if Kevin would be standing on the other side of the room he wouldn’t be able to miss the way his whole body goes tense. The medicine in his veins pulls a smile onto his lips as he turns his head and grins up in Kevin’s face that has gone white and looks even paler under the overhead lights. 

The smile evaporates off his face, however, when Wymack says, “Edgar Allan’s come south.” 

And then there’s silence for a few seconds, in the room and in the usual chaos of Andrew’s thoughts. They stand still, as if frozen in time, and Andrew can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. It’s strong, calm. He keeps his eyes on Kevin and his white face, on the tight knuckled grip he has on his knees and sees Abby moving, putting her hands on Kevin’s shoulders in support. 

Someone starts laughing in the room, but Andrew doesn’t look who it is. He isn’t able to take his eyes from Kevin; Kevin who looks oh so scared and resembles a child after a nightmare more than a grown man playing stick ball. Andrew notices the room going quiet again and then he smiles again. It suddenly makes sense, why Abby moved to stand behind Kevin, why Kevin had been weirdly twitchy the last week. 

“Hey, Kevin,” Andrew says, and bares his teeth in a smile. “Hear that? Someone really misses you.” 

“The ERC shouldn’t have approved it,” Kevin says quietly but Andrew hears him. 

“You said he would come for you.” Andrew remembers Kevin saying, _“he will come for me”_ as if it had happened yesterday and he remembers his own words, too. _“So let him come.”_

“I didn’t know it would be like this.” 

“Liar,” Andrew says and Kevin flinches. 

Andrew twists to sit sideways on the couch to see Kevin better. He feels Nicky leaning away from him, but he doesn’t care — he just doesn’t care for this, does he? But he does care about Kevin looking sick to his stomach and he waits for Kevin to start panicking over the bomb Wymack dropped on them. He waits for Kevin to say he can’t do this. Five seconds, then ten. And then he knows it won’t come and white hot anger sparks alive somewhere deep in his chest. 

“You did know about this,” Andrew says and Kevin doesn’t deny it. His smile grows. “How long? One day, two days, three four five?” 

“Coach told me when it was approved in May.” 

“May. May, Day. Mayday. A little curious, Kevin Day. When were you going to tell me?” 

“I told him not to,” Wymack says. 

“You picked Coach over me?” Andrew asks and the ridiculousness of it all makes him throw his head back and laugh. Ironic, isn’t it, that betrayal always comes in different forms that end up being oh so similar. “Ohhhh my. Favoritism, deception, betrayal, how familiar. After all that I’ve done for you,” he says, not only to Kevin but also to his brother — not that he will understand. 

“Andrew, knock it off,” Abby warns from behind Kevin. 

“Help me,” Kevin says, and it’s almost quiet enough to be a whisper. 

Andrew clicks his tongue at that and cocks his head to his side. “Help you?” he repeats and the words taste like ash on his tongue. “Help a man who lies to my face for a month? How?” 

“I want to stay,” Kevin says. “I’ll ask you again: don’t let him take me away.” 

“You’re the one who would tell him yes,” Andrew says, because it’s the truth. And then he twists the knife a little, maybe because Kevin doesn’t seem to be thinking about their promise, maybe because he wants to, and adds, “Maybe you forgot.” 

“Please.” 

Oh, Kevin really is a lucky man to say that when Andrew isn’t sober. Fury crawls over Andrew’s body, buries itself in his ribcage and makes itself home. “You know how much I hate that word.” 

Kevin doesn’t appear to have an answer to that. He stares down at his hands where they are clenched in his lap, eyes on the scar that runs across the back of his hand. The scar whose responsibility Riko Moriyama carries like armor and probably isn’t afraid to show off. 

Andrew heaves an exaggerated sigh when Kevin doesn’t look back up, the anger rushing out of him like smoke and rising in vicious curls until it’s invisible and whisked away by the wind. He holds his hand out to block Kevin’s view of his scar. 

“Look at me,” he says. 

Kevin turns a look on him, his eyes wide and filled with a haunted expression that Andrew has seen before, and Andrew smiles because he can’t do anything else but smile and smile and smile. 

“It’ll be fine,” Andrew says. “I promised, didn’t I? Don’t you believe me?”

And then, finally, Kevin relaxes. Maybe he does believe Andrew after all. The trust Kevin has in Andrew seems to be enough to melt the dead edge out of Kevin’s eyes. Andrew doesn’t know what he would’ve done if Kevin didn’t trust him to be there — sweep another broken promise under the rug and pretend nothing happened, maybe? It’s not something Andrew isn’t practiced in, after all. No, some broken promises sit like glass shards right under his skin and hurt and push when he least expects it. 

Wymack nods when Kevin lets out a shaky sigh. “The ERC will make their official announcement later this month. They agreed to wait until you were all here where it’s easier for us to protect you. That doesn't mean you can be careless. Chuck — that’s our university president Charles Whittier, Neil — has reissued orders that reporters stay off our campus without a police escort this summer. You’ll see twice as many campus police around, and I need all of you to save their number to your phones just in case. Understood?” 

Andrew doesn’t feel like responding. He still feels like a rubber band stretched too far, but now he feels close to snapping in half and stinging whoever is close by and his fingers itch for a cigarette. 

The room goes quiet, and after a few seconds Neil speaks up. “Anything else, Coach, or are we finished?” 

Andrew tunes out Dan and glances sharply at Neil. Somehow it doesn’t come as a surprise that Neil had known before Andrew. No, not at all. And that he hadn’t let anything show, that he hadn’t acted differently, is almost as odd as Kevin keeping it together. Remembering the photographs and newspaper cutouts in his binder is almost enough to make him laugh again. 

“I don’t trust him,” Seth says as soon as the sound of the entrance door slamming shut echoes through the hallway. 

“You don’t have to.” Dan heaves a sigh. “No one says that you have to make friendship bracelets with Neil or become his best friend—” 

“Yeah, good luck with that one,” Nicky says. 

“—you have to play with him on the court and then you can go pretend he doesn’t exist,” Dan finishes and crosses her arms. “Don’t make problems out of nothing.” 

“This isn’t nothing!” Seth throws his hands in the air. “I get a good for nothing as a sub, and he’s not only tiny but also shit. Thank you so much, that’s surely going to help a lot.” 

“I think he’s cute,” Allison says and looks at her nails. 

Dan turns to the couch Andrew shares with his cousin, his brother and Kevin. Her eyebrows are pinched together as she looks at them, as if doing so causes her physical pain. “What do you think of Neil?” 

“He needs more time with us,” Nicky says.

“He has to be more aggressive,” Aaron says. “He let us shove him around like a rag doll.” 

And then Dan looks at Andrew when Kevin stays quiet and Andrew takes great pleasure in not answering for a few seconds. Then he looks over his shoulder, as if someone is standing behind him before me points to himself, his lips curling up again. “Oh, me? You’re asking for my opinion?” He puts one hand to his chest. “I’m flattered!” 

He pretends that he doesn’t see the looks the others turn on him, he doesn’t care much for them anyway, and takes a second to think. As much as Andrew had tried not to, he had seen Neil on the court again and again and noticing things about him had been unavoidable — especially because Andrew’s suspicion about their newest team member hasn’t been confirmed yet and because taking his eyes off Neil when he’s close to Kevin would feel as if Andrew himself handed him a sharpened knife and said, “go crazy.” 

“Here’s something for you: I would bet that Neil can outrun everyone on this team,” he adds on and points to Wymack with wide eyes when Dan raises her eyebrows. “Ask Wymack if you don’t trust me. You don’t trust me, right? Wounds me deeply, it does, but keep it that way! Abby,” he says and looks over his shoulder. “I feel very unwelcome here, can we get this over with?” 

Andrew stands up and ignores everyone as he follows Abby down the hall to the medical room and waits as she unlocks the door and flicks on the light on her way inside. 

The first part of Abby’s physical is easy; Andrew has to let his height and weight get measured and follows Abby’s gentle commands as she runs a series of tests from reflexes to blood pressure. She takes two vials of blood from his left arm as he hums quietly, without actually touching him skin on skin, labels them and then locks them in a drawer. 

Then she motions at him and Andrew grits his teeth, still humming but not moving from his place. 

“Andrew,” she says. 

“Abby,” he parrots and throws a grin at her. 

“You know that I have to check for track marks, Andrew.” 

“Do I? Oh, I do!” Andrew snips and then points at her. “But you don’t need to keep saying my name, I’m certain that I won’t forget it anytime soon.” He lets out a snort at that and then reaches up to pull off his shirt. 

The soft cotton sliding over his skin makes Andrew want to take out his lighter and set his shirt on fire to see how it would look engulfed in flames, but he can’t do that. It wouldn’t be very practical to go outside like this. Andrew’s pale skin is very sensitive, after all. 

“Thank you,” Abby says quietly and walks around him once. Scribbles something down. “Can you pull down your armbands a little? Just one or two inches.” 

Andrew softly rolls the top of them down and lets Abby look for a second with each arm before tugging them up again and resuming his humming. He didn’t notice that he had stopped. Odd. 

Abby fills out the rest of her form in silence and Andrew pulls his shirt back on, letting the heel of his shoe bump against Abby’s table in an erratic rhythm that mirrors the speed of his thoughts. “We’re done,” she says when she’s done and Andrew is off her table. “Could you send Seth—”

“No, I don’t think I can,” Andrew says with a snort and looks back when Abby says his name. “Oh, oh! I don’t think I understand you correctly. It seems like the connection is very bad in here. I will call you back, or not! Probably not.” 

Andrew walks out of her office and out of the stadium without another word, his head buzzing. He leans against his car for a second and pushes out a laugh. Oh, who would’ve thought that Kevin would keep secrets as big as this one from Andrew? Andrew isn’t sure if he likes it, and then decides that he definitely doesn’t.

He pulls out his pack of cigarettes with another laugh and lights one, watching the grey smoke curl up like tentacles, moving in this and that direction before disappearing. 

***

Andrew is sitting on his desk and looking at the quiet parking lot, his stare an unmoving line and the drug induced smile that usually refuses to leave coming out of his system. There’s a weight on his chest when he doesn’t acknowledge that Kevin is behind the closed door to the bedroom, and Andrew knows where it’s coming from. 

He remembers finding out about the cheerleader, not that Aaron had been trying to be overly subtle about it (his brother wouldn’t know what subtlety was if it knocked him upside down), because of course he remembers. And the tightness of his chest, of yet another broken promise, of another band cut in half and him being the one left holding the longer half. 

It’s not that Kevin broke their promise, it’s the not telling Andrew about something as important as the Ravens coming south that sets him on edge. It’s better than it had been earlier, his medication slowly wearing off with every minute that brings them closer to the sunset, but it’s annoying and Andrew doesn’t like it. It drowns out the itch of warmth running alongside his ribcage like a captured bird and it’s — annoying. 

“Andrew—” Nicky tries from where he’s sitting Aaron. 

“Oh, you don’t seem to know what the silent treatment is, Nicky!” Andrew interrupts and flicks his cigarette out of the window to look at his cousin. “Usually, people understand what’s happening, don’t they? Listen closely, because I will not be repeating myself.” He holds up his hand to his mouth, as if he’s about to tell Nicky a secret. “I am giving you the silent treatment, and it means that I refuse to talk to you because it makes me want to hurl. Understand? Good!” 

And then Andrew walks out of the room and slams the door shut behind him with his throat burning from the first signs of withdrawal. He remembers something he’d done before Neil joined this team, and then his throat burns for another reason and he makes his way down the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevator, and gets into his car and drives. 

Wymack isn’t in his apartment when Andrew arrives, not that that is a big problem. It actually makes things easier for him and Andrew sets a mental reminder to put a thank you note on Wymack’s fridge before he leaves again. Picking the lock here is almost easier than it was in Fox Tower and Andrew lets himself in. 

His phone starts ringing in his pocket when he finds one of the whiskey bottles Wymack tried to hide behind a pack of potato chips and he ignores it while he throws the potato chips carelessly onto the floor. 

Andrew uncaps the bottle, throws his phone onto the table in the living room and takes a big sip when he sits down on the couch with his legs crossed. 

The sun goes down as he sits there and drinks and doesn’t think. He doesn’t know how much time goes by, but eventually he starts feeling the first wave of nausea from his withdrawal. It hits him like it always does, hard and then softer and Andrew clenches his teeth and takes another sip of the whiskey to wash it down. 

There’s the smallest urge in Andrew to shred this place down as the anger that had been suppressed by his medication makes itself known again, but another, albeit softer, wave of nausea has him putting his bottle onto the table and wrapping his hands around his ankles. 

It’s a few minutes later when he hears keys clinking together and the door being pushed open. Andrew hears Wymack pause in the doorway, probably wondering why the light in his kitchen is one, before the door gets kicked close. 

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Wymack says walking into the living room. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Andrew says though clenched teeth and Wymack turns around again. Plates clank together in the kitchen and something rustles before Andrew stops listening. His head is pleasantly quiet, his drug induced racing thoughts still and he feels buzzed. 

Wymack comes back a few minutes later with two plates of sandwiches in his hands. He sits down on the coffee table facing Andrew and puts one of the plates on the cushion at Andrew’s side. 

“You’re cleaning this place before you leave,” Wymack says, as if Andrew actually had done more than break in and throw a pack of potato chips onto the floor. “You leave even a speck of that dust behind in my apartment and we’re going to have a serious problem.” 

“We already have a serious problem,” Andrew says, because they do and there’s a very high possibility that Wymack doesn’t know about it. 

“Eat first, bitch at me later.” 

Andrew doesn’t manage to soften his grip on his ankles enough to reach for the food until a minute later. He tears his sandwich into shreds, almost imagines Neil’s face being painted on it, then takes the shreds apart and eats a small piece at a time. The problem with his medication, and especially with his withdrawal, is that it leaves him as high as a kite during the day and has him crashing very fast very soon in the evening. 

And while Andrew appreciates having a clear head, without his attention being the moth to every small issue that resembles a light, he doesn’t like this part of it. 

Andrew manages to eat three-quarters and then reaches for the bottle again, drinking until he has to come up for air. He thinks back to the prescription of colored contacts and asks, “What color are his eyes?” 

“Green.” 

David Wymack, always the comedian. “I’m not talking about Kevin,” Andrew says, though he doubts that Wymack doesn’t know. 

“For once.” 

“Who have you let on my team?” Andrew sees in Wymack’s face that that’s not what he expected to hear. Maybe he expected Andrew to blow up over the Ravens coming south and while that still is something that makes hot anger spark deep inside him, Neil might be more important. And isn’t that funny? 

There’s a small chance that Kevin isn’t the sole reason for Edgar Allen to join their round, but that Neil had his fingers somehow in it. Who’s here to say he didn’t feed information to Riko Moriyama like you’d do with a small child and a spoon? 

“Kevin picked him,” Wymack says. “I just signed off on him.” 

“Mistake,” Andrew says with the photographs in the binder on his mind. “He can’t stay. If you don’t chase him off, I will.” 

“Leave him alone.” Wymack looks at him when Andrew reaches for the whiskey again and then actually slams it back down onto the tabletop. “Andrew. _Leave him alone_. He’s got just as much right to be here as any of you do.”

“Does he?” Andrew asks and doesn’t explain what he means by that. He can’t explain what he saw in Neil’s binder, and he wants Neil to try to explain it. Wants to hear him talk himself out of it. “I’m sick of his lies.” 

“Is that so? I’m pretty sure he’s sick of your sunshine attitude, too.” 

Andrew pulls his lips up, tries to muster up the cheer he would have during the day. “Aw, you’re not a fan of this? And here I was thinking people enjoyed it more when I was enjoying myself. You would me.” He lets his smile drop. “Say, do you know what he’s hiding?” 

“No, Andrew, I don’t. It’s none of my business unless he makes it mine.” 

“You saw the way he looked at Kevin.” 

“I did,” Wymack says and blows out a breath, half a snort and half a sigh. “You looked at Kevin like that, too. You used to hate him. Kevin’s not exactly a people person.” 

Kevin isn’t much of a person at all, not currently, but Andrew doesn’t feel like saying it. “He isn’t safe.” 

“Have you even tried talking to him?” 

“Fake smiles and bullshit. Complete waste of time. No, he had his chance to come clean and ignored it.” Andrew looks up and meets Wymack’s eyes. “I’m taking him to Columbia this Friday.” 

What he doesn’t say is that he’s going to pull Neil’s secrets out of him, if he wants to or not. He has to, Andrew promised to protect Kevin and he can’t do that when Neil is a red flag as big as the Fox Tower (metaphorically). He is a problem and Andrew still won’t put it past him to be in contact with Riko Moriyama. There is one way to make him talk, and Wymack knows what Andrew means. 

“Don’t you dare.” 

“You can’t stop me,” Andrew says, which is, technically, not the truth. There’s multiple things Wymack could easily do to pull the breaks on the plan that has already been set in motion. 

“But I can end you,” Wymack says. “All of you. If you do to him what you did to Matt, I will cut every last one of you from my roster.” 

“You don’t even know who you’re protecting.” 

“A Fox. Same as any of you.” 

And here it is. The protective tinge in Wymack’s voice is something Andrew understands better than anything else. It sings in a language written in Andrew’s blood, burned into his skin, and it’s as familiar as his own name. He gets it, he gets how protective Wymack is of someone even if they haven’t been around for long. Once you claim someone as part of your pack, of your team, of your family, they’re there.

Wymack has disappeared by the time Andrew’s phone begins to ring again. He heaves a sigh and suddenly notices how tired he is, his bones heavy and his head leaning against the coach. 

He looks at the caller ID and takes the call when he sees Renee’s name, but doesn’t say anything and just holds it to his ear. 

“Did I wake you?” Renee asks him in lieu of hello. “I was hoping to talk to you tonight,—” and with talking she means that she hoped they would beat the shit out of each other “—but Nicky says you’ve wandered off.” 

“Find another source of entertainment,” Andrew tells her and reaches over to screw the cap back on the whiskey, his need for it gone. 

“Oh?”

He runs the tip of his tongue over his teeth, tastes the sharp alcohol sitting there. “I’m at Wymack’s.” 

“All right, then. I’ll try again tomorrow,” Renee says. “Lunch, perhaps.” 

Andrew blows out a breath. “We’ll see.” 

“Okay. Good night.” 

Andrew hangs up instead of saying it back and drops his phone onto the floor, where the landing gets softened by the grey carpet. He already knows that driving back now would be stupid, so he pulls off his shoes and decides that his presence will be Wymack’s problem to deal with. 

A blanket lands on the floor in front of the couch and Andrew considers it for a moment, pokes it with his foot and then drags it up onto the couch. He curled his fingers around the soft fabric and makes a fist. “You wouldn’t really cut Kevin,” Andrew says. 

Wymack doesn’t respond to him, but Andrew knows that he’s right. It would be a stupid thing to do, to throw out their best player and Andrew knows that Wymack knows this. Not only that, Andrew thinks as he lays down on his side with his back pressed to the backrest, it would give Kevin a push to leave Palmetto and neither Wymack nor Andrew want that. 

Andrew covers himself with the blanket and decides to try and pull Neil’s tail more tomorrow, to find out if he is really the angry kitten he pretends to be, or maybe even a wolf in sheep's clothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see y’all tomorrow; comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for drugs, non consentual drug use and dry heaving

The day of their trip to Eden’s Twilight finds Andrew and his lot in the mall between practices. It’s only a thirty minute drive away from Palmetto, and Andrew knows that they will make it back in time but he considers shoving Kevin into the clothing rack next to him if he mentions Exy one more time. Maybe he’ll do it anyway to see Kevin throw one of his tantrums. 

Andrew takes a dark shirt off the short table in front of him, looks at it and then drops it carelessly to the floor. He can hear Kevin heaving an impatient sigh behind him as he picks it up and lets his thoughts drown out the preppy music coming from the speakers attached to the ceiling all over the store.

The entire first week of their summer practices leading up to Friday had been filled with in-fighting on the court, not that Andrew had expected anything else. Their personalities clash on and off the court, but it’s more noticeable when they’re supposed to play together as a team and from where Andrew leans against his racquet in the home goal practice after practice without doing much of anything, he has a perfect view of what goes on in front of him. 

Andrew is amused enough by Dan acting as their captain, ruling them with an angry spine, and pushing people into line that he doesn’t mind following her orders. Though he does laugh all the while doing so, and he knows how much it grates on everyone’s nerves. His volume increases now and then, curious to see how the team will react before his attention is drawn away by something else. 

“It’s like watching a horde of wild, feral animals,” Andrew had said to Bee on Wednesday afternoon when he saw her again for their weekly therapy session. 

“Is it interesting? To follow what happens?” Bee had asked and then taken a sip of her tea.

Andrew remembers letting out a snort. The only two things that hold his attention for more than two seconds, that attach themselves to his thoughts like glue and pull in only one direction instead of twenty at the same time are Renee, and irritatingly enough, Neil. 

Neil, who doesn’t have a place in their strange hierarchy on court yet, who Andrew wants to break apart into hundred pieces and put him back together and repeat it until something about him starts making sense. Neil, who will spill his secrets one way or another. It’s a little ridiculous, really. Every time Andrew thinks he knows something about Neil, it slips through his fingers like water and disappears through the cracks in the floor, unable to be recovered. 

“Oh Bee,” Andrew had replied, his lips pulled up into a manic smile. “That’s not a good question, now, is it? Nothing about this holds my interest, and I really, highly doubt that it ever will. That’s wish thinking, and we--it and me-- don’t get along at all.” He had leaned forward with his hands cupped around his hot chocolate, letting the warmth sink into his bones. “We’re a little like oil and water! Can’t mix those two.” 

Something dark gets thrust into his face and Andrew blinks. 

It’s Nicky, with his fingers wrapped around a hanger shoved into a shirt that’s dark and has more holes than fabric. “This?” 

Andrew makes a buzzing sound and blows out a breath when Nicky holds up another shirt. It’s dark and has a camouflage print and is the ugliest piece of clothing Andrew has seen the whole day. “Hey Nicky?” 

“Yeah?”

“Next time don’t bring me empty hangers to look at, okay? Good, I’m so glad we understand each other.” 

“What about a crop top?” 

Here’s the thing: Andrew didn’t tell anyone that Neil doesn’t have anything appropriate to wear, in general and much less for a club like Eden’s Twilight. He doesn’t think that anyone can miss how old or ratty Neil’s clothes look, it would be hard not to -- but it seems as if Nicky and Aaron both don’t understand the reasons as to why they’re here (neither does Kevin but Andrew doesn’t even try there anymore).

No, his cousin actually makes the impression as if Andrew is searching clothes for himself. That thought is unacceptable, as are the words that left Nicky’s mouth, and even if they fit Andrew’s drug laced humor, he isn’t opposed to dropping his cousin into the fountain near the food court. It actually sounds very entertaining.

The thought of food makes his stomach curl. 

“Nicky,” Andrew says and Nicky audibly swallowing has a wave of amusement wash over him. He smiles and it feels more like baring his teeth, as if he’s a wild animal ready to rip his prey apart. “I think you want to remove yourself from this store and buy something to eat before I shove my boot down your throat, yes?” 

Aaron pulls Nicky out of the store, Kevin lets out another sigh and Andrew really, really wants to test the stability of the clothing racks with his body. 

***

They make it back to the court in time for their practice, just like Andrew had known they would, and it goes the same way it did all week. Nothing about it holds Andrew’s attention and he stands in the goal and occasionally smashes away brave shots from Kevin and manages to resist the urge to send them back to his ankles. 

After, when Andrew has showered and is leaning against his car, he takes the time to smoke two cigarettes in the blazing sun as he waits for his brother and cousin. The first wave of withdrawal makes itself known with a twist of his stomach and Andrew grabs it with his bare hands to bury it deep down. He ignores Kevin’s disapproving frown until he’s snipping away the butt of his second cigarette in Kevin’s direction and then cheerily shows him his middle finger before walking inside. 

Nicky and Aaron walk out not five minutes later and Aaron immediately gets into the car when Andrew flings the bag in his hand at Nicky. “What’s this?” 

“Ding dong,” Andrew says and the face Nicky makes is enough to pull a laugh out of him.”Delivery for Neil Josten!” he asks and makes a shooing motion. “Did you not listen to me, that is for Neil. It’s rude to keep someone else’s gifts, has no one taught you that?” 

“Are those clothes?” 

“You sure have some eyes on you, Nicky! Now I don’t know if you noticed but poor Neil didn’t have anything appropriate to wear for later that didn’t make him look like a raggedy hobo, until now.” 

“You bought him clothes?” 

“Tik Tok,” Andrew says and looks at his empty wrist. “I actually don’t want to be here anymore and will leave in five minutes, so it would be extremely helpful if you would bring Neil his little gift.” He snaps his fingers as Nicky turns away, his conversation with Wymack at the back of his mind like an infinite echo vibrating through his brain. “Oh, do tell him to ditch his fashion contacts, yes? I very much don’t like them.” 

Nicky makes his way inside and Andrew grits his teeth as Kevin looks at him for a second before getting into the car and slamming the door behind him like a petulant child. It’s only a little troublesome, that Kevin can’t seem to choose between behaving like an infant and an old man. 

Andrew gets into the car and pulls out his lighter to click it in an erratic rhythm, his leg bouncing up and down as he does so. He doesn’t look at anyone when he says, “It’s actually illegal to keep someone else’s delivery, did you know that?” 

His lighter comes to live, a flame sparking and its color a proud mix of red, orange and yellow. The heat is sinking into his skin and Andrew lets it, doesn’t move his finger away. He waits until the heat slips into his bones, until it sets him on fire from the inside out, and raises his temperature to a boiling point. But of course it doesn’t.

The flame dies as Nicky opens the driver’s door and Andrew puts the lighter away, the warm metal burning through the fabric of his pants. 

***

Andrew’s patience runs thin after standing in the hallway in front of Neil’s room for five minutes, his stomach twisting, and he leans down to pick the lock to the suite again. He did say he wouldn’t do it, as a compromise to Neil coming with them to Columbia, but there was no promise made and there’s sweat building at the back of Andrew’s neck and Andrew really, really doesn’t give a shit. 

The door room is empty when Andrew pushes the door open, and for a moment he thinks that Neil ran away. But then he sees yellow light under the door leading to the bathroom and he turns his head to look at the wall clock in the kitchen. 

Nicky, Aaron and Kevin sit down on the dark couch and Aaron immediately pulls out his phone. It doesn’t surprise Andrew, rarely anything does these days, but a broken promise is hanging in the air, hanging between them, and it still pushes the glass shards under his skin deeper and deeper. It leaves them buried there, where every movement pokes and pushes in a cruel reminder of something he isn’t able to forget.

Andrew decides to let them be and turns away when he hears the bathroom door open, follows Neil to the bedroom and folds his arms as he leans against the doorframe. He watches as Neil puts his clothes into the bottom drawer of his dresser, notice the absence of the duffle bag and then Neil turns around. Andrew blinks before he studies Neil. 

The clothes decorating Neil’s body are the complete opposite of what he had been wearing since Andrew had seen him for the first time, he’s head to toe in black. Cargoes light and cut to accommodate the pair of heavy boots on his feet. The shirt is long-sleeved, tight and looks like it’d torn through in places. There’s a charcoal inner layer peeking out through the gashes in it that hide Neil’s skin. 

Andrew’s eyes follow the delicate curve of his neck, over the sharp jawline framing his head and he looks up and—

—and everything in Andrew screeches to a stop. There is no noise in his head, his thoughts still and as if frozen in time. His pulse is loud against the silence in his head and Andrew blinks again, slower this time. 

Neil actually took out his contact lenses and Andrew looks and looks at bright, chilly eyes. They’re like fire in ice, brilliant when the sun hits it and too blinding to look at for longer than a few seconds at a time.

They look only brighter against his black hair and clothes, and Andrew can’t help but reach for Neil with one hand to wrap his fingers around the back of his neck. To pull him and his blue, blue, blue eyes closer and look at them again. 

“Another bit of unexpected honesty,” Andrew says. Odd, that someone who tells as many lies as Neil does, who carries as many secrets as Neil does, would let a truth slip as response to a simple request. “Any particular reason?” 

“Nicky asked nicely. You might try sometime.” 

“We already talked about this. I don’t ask.” Andrew looks at him again, the dark hair and clothing and the bright eyes, and removes his hand. There’s something blooming inside of him and Andrew buries it viciously before it has the chance to grow. His skin prickles where he had touched Neil, as if Andrew is charged with electricity. “We’re going.”

Nicky looks up as they step into the living room, and then his happy expression falters when he looks past Andrew and Andrew puts his hand in his pocket.”Oh, man. Neil, you clean up good. Can I say that, or is that against the rules? Just—damn.” Nicky looks at Aaron, shoves his elbow in his side and Aaron shoves back. “Aaron, don’t let me get too drunk tonight.” 

Andrew stops walking next to where Nicky is standing up and pulls his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He lights one, despite the smoke detectors that are in every dormitory room, and flicks his lighter in Nicky’s face. “Don’t make me kill you.” 

Nicky holds up his hands. “I know.” 

“Do you?” 

“I promise,” Nicky says weakly. 

His stomach rumbles and somewhere deep in his chest, buried under layers and layers of careful nothing, something hot sparks at those words. Andrew ignores it and puts his lighter away before leaving the room with Kevin and Aaron following. Those words don’t have the same meaning to Nicky, or to Aaron, or anyone really, than they do to Andrew. They’re simple words with little to no meaning, easily said and forgotten. Easily broken and swept under the rug. 

And Andrew is so tired; broken promises weight down his bones and make him feel so heavy that he almost expects to see the outlines of his boots imprinted on the floor. 

Andrew sits in the same spot as the last time Neil drove with them, with Neil on his left and Kevin in front of him. A few minutes after leaving campus, Andrew pops himself against his window and stops fighting his drooping eyelids. 

He doesn’t mean to doze off, and he’s usually not someone who falls asleep that quickly, but a push against his shoulder has Andrew lashing out. His elbow connects with something and his eyes are open before he knows it. 

Someone snaps their fingers at him and when Andrew turns his head, he sees that Neil is doubled over his knees and Aaron looks away from him. “Exit.” 

Andrew braces himself on Neil’s back, leveraging himself between the front seats and ignoring the warmth bleeding from Neil’s skin through his shirt and on Andrew’s own skin. He looks out front until they pass a familiar sign and says, “Not yet. It’s the exit that has Waffle House.” 

“This is South Carolina,” Nicky says. “Every exit leads to a Waffle House.” He technically isn’t wrong, but Andrew doesn’t feel like responding anymore. “Still breathing, Neil?” 

“Yes,” Andrew hears Neil say hoarsely. “I think.” 

Andrew drops back into his seat and that’s when he notices the shaking of his hands. He looks down at them, at how they move like a small animal in the cold and there’s a cold shiver walking down his spine. And then, suddenly, there’s nausea clawing at his throat. 

“Nicky,” Andrew says with bile rising at the back of his throat and he swallows it down. 

The car switches lanes. “We’re almost there.” 

“Pull over.” 

“We’re on an exit ramp.”

Another wave of nausea hits Andrew, and through clenched teeth he says, “Now.” 

Nicky doesn’t argue again. He pulls off and breaks so hard that Andrew has to swallow hard again and horns blare as a car whips past them. Andrew manages to shove his door open and lean out as far as he can before he starts dry-heaving into the weeds. They burst from his throat so strongly that he almost chokes with the effort and he can feel his entire body shaking. 

“Where are your crackers?” Nicky asks as Andrew gasps for breath when his nausea and the urge to dry-heave vanish. 

“He took them earlier,” Kevin says, which isn’t entirely the truth. He did take a part of them before he went to Wymack’s a few days ago and what he had taken earlier was the rest. In hindsight, it wasn’t his smartest decision but he had needed a clear head to talk to Wymack. 

“All of them?” Nicky asks horrified. “Jesus, Andrew.” 

“Shut up,” Andrew says and spits to get the annoying, sour taste out of his mouth. The fresh air isn’t cold, but it’s cooler than during the day and it feels like heaven on Andrew’s overheated skin. He takes another few seconds to breathe before he reaches for Kevin’s headrest without looking and pulls himself back inside the car. “Just get us there.” 

Nicky floors it and Andrew turns his head to look out of the window. The car slows down once they enter the outskirts of Columbia, night traffic thick around them. Their first destination is Sweetie’s, a restaurant where they go to eat ice cream (or Andrew, at least) and grab cracker dust. They aren’t the first to do this, and they won’t be the last. 

Nicky drops them off at the door and drives off to look for a parking lot. There are four groups ahead of them and waiting for seats when they walk inside, but Andrew isn’t too bothered. He walks by them to the salad bar to grab two handfuls of cracker packets from a bucket near the end. As he starts eating his way through them, Kevin and Neil both watch — Neil with a blank face and Kevin with obvious disapproval. Andrew knows that if he wasn’t sober, the looks would make him laugh. 

Now he only throws his empty pack in Kevin’s face and rips open another one as Kevin picks it up. He finishes them before Nicky joins them and a few minutes later they get seated at a booth in the back. 

Andrew stuffs his empty cracker packets into the host’s apron, careful not to touch his clothing where it touches the man’s body and turns his gaze up to the ceiling for a moment. He drowns out Nicky talking to the waitress, not that his cousin says anything new to her. His head is so heavy, which is funny considering there’s no noise for once, no erratic thoughts and he doesn’t have the urge to point a finger in Kevin’s ugly face and laugh. 

He cradles his face in one hand instead and looks at the wall on the opposite side of the room as another shudder passes through him. The nausea passed and Andrew feels hot and cold at the same time, his muscles start to hurt and there’s pressure behind his eyes. 

And then Kevin pulls a familiar bottle out of his pocket, pills rattling against the dark glass, and sets it on the table halfway between them. “Just take them.” 

Andrew goes still as he looks down at the bottle. Here’s the thing: Andrew knows taking the pills and letting himself be thrown into the world dyed in radiant colors where everything is worth looking at but nothing is worth staring at is easier than sitting going through withdrawal. He isn’t stupid, of course he knows this. But Andrew hates the drug laced smile on his face he wears during the day and he can’t focus with his thoughts a foggy mess -- and he needs to focus today. Andrew needs to be able to focus and he needs the quiet in his mind, the blank emptiness, to deal with Neil. 

“Fuck you,” Andrew says, his teeth clenched hard enough that his temple starts pulsing. 

Neil looks at him, and Andrew sees it out of the corner of his eyes. Sees the blue eyes, brighter under the overhead lights. “You’re going through withdrawal.”

That it took him that long to notice is almost insulting. Only almost, though. 

Andrew ignores him and drags his eyes up to focus on Kevin. “Put that away before I shove it down your throat.” 

Kevin frowns but does as he’s told without throwing a fit. And it’s smart of him because Andrew isn’t opposed to shoving him out of the booth and onto the floor. 

It doesn’t take too long for their ice cream to arrive and as soon as the waitress leaves, Andrew scatters the napkins she put in the middle of the table with an impatient hand to find the cracker dust underneath it. 

“We’re in public,” Aaron says but Andrew doesn’t really care what his brother thinks and rips open two bags to upend them into his mouth. 

Andrew lets them sit in his mouth for a second before he swallows the salty yellow powder and takes a deep breath. He collects the rest of the packets and hides them in one of his pockets. Pain returns with a vicious twist of his stomach as Andrew moves and he presses the side of his hand hard against his mouth and swallows against another, sudden wave of nausea. 

The minute it takes for the cracker dust to take the edge off Andrew is annoying and then it does and Andrew can breathe for the first time since getting into the car earlier; his temples stop pulsing, the shaking in his hands slithers away, the tension in his muscles loosens. And then Andrew feels emptiness settle over him like a blanket and he starts eating. 

He avoids looking at Neil with his dark hair and blue, blue eyes the whole time. There’s something oddly fascinating about Neil, maybe it’s the unexpected truth he gave for free, maybe it’s the way he pushes the ice cream away from himself. Whatever it is, Andrew knows that once he starts looking at him, it’ll be impossible to stop and Andrew can’t do this, not here and not know.

And he continues to ignore Neil’s presence during the short drive to their destination of the night. Eden’s Twilight is a two-story nightclub a couple of blocks from the main road. As always, there is a line of people waiting to get in; men wearing leather and women wearing corsets in black. 

Nicky pulls up to the curb and Andrew gets out to lead the way inside as Aaron brings Nicky the orange tag he got from one of the bouncers who’s familiar with them. Andrew salutes the bouncers on his way in, and Kevin and Neil are steady at his back as he walks in and spares the barest second to take in his surroundings. 

They’re standing on a dais that wraps around the floor and is crowded with tables. Stairs lead down to a packed dance floor, and Andrew knows he will ban Nicky and his brother to it later with Neil in tow, keep him busy until Andrew doesn’t feel like he’s going to come apart every second. There’s another flight of stairs that leads up to the second floor that’s really a balcony more than anything else. 

Andrew can feel the bass of the tall speakers crunching against his bones, setting his blood alive in ways his medication can’t. It vibrates inside of him, moves him like water and he lets it as he leads them to a free table in the corner. He clears away the empty cups littering on top and then raises his arm, puts his fingers into Neil’s collar, careful not to touch his skin to avoid the feelings of needles prickling his skin from the inside out, and pulls Neil with him to the bar. 

He doesn’t trust Neil and Neil clearly doesn’t trust him, but that is not the whole reason Andrew pulls him along. Andrew is sure Neil will appreciate seeing with his own eyes how his drink is getting prepared, not that that will change anything or save him from what Andrew has planned. 

It takes all of a second for Roland to notice them and he flashes Andrew an easy smile. Roland is all dark hair and dark eyes, and while Andrew doesn’t feel anything looking at him, not since they stopped working and helping out here, his smile suddenly irritates him. He wants to reach out and force down the corners of the bartender’s mouth. “Back so soon, Andrew? Who’s your newest victim?” 

What would sound like a joke to anyone else is a genuine question leveled at Andrew. 

“A nobody,” Andrew says, because it’s the truth. “It’s the usual for us.” 

Roland nods and looks at Neil. “And for you?” 

“I don’t drink,” Neil says and it’s only a little surprising, and it is what has Andrew turning his head in his direction as Roland pushes away from them to put their order together. 

Looking at Neil, all blue eyes and dark, dark hair without his meds clouding his thoughts makes something spark deep inside of Andrew, electric and entirely wrong. Neil is attractive, Andrew had known this from the first moment he set his eyes on him, even when he looks ratty from head to toe, but now he’s like an itch sitting directly under Andrew’s skin — an itch he cannot and will not scratch. It’s irritating more than anything else, and something Andrew thought he had snuffed out like a small flame. Snuffed out and buried and locked away. 

Roland returning with their drinks is enough of a distraction for Andrew to turn his head back and watch as the bartender turns his broad back to them before sliding a glass of soda to Neil. He catches Andrew’s gaze, eyes glittering under the flashing lights and with a question in them, and Andrew turns away. 

Andrew leads the way back through the crowd with Neil at his back and pushes drunk people out of his way as he does so. He puts the tray down on the table as Nicky leanes out of the way. 

They drink as one and Andrew has to get up to get their second round of drinks, Neil follows with his empty glass to get another soda. Andrew pulls out the packs from Sweetie’s and dumps them on the table. Snatches one to wag one at Neil with amusement bubbling faintly inside of him. Neil just looks at him and Andrew can’t help but let his lips curl up into a smirk. 

There is a reason that Neil emptied his soda as fast as he did, and Andrew plays with the thought of telling him why to see how he would react before throwing it away. He’s sure Neil will find out one way or another sooner rather than later, and he doesn’t want to spoil the fun for himself. 

“Cracker dust,” Nicky tells Neil as he rips his own packet open. “Heard of it? Tastes like sugar and salt and gives you a small rush.—” and leaves you dehydrated if you’re not careful “—Sure you don’t want it?” 

“Drugs are stupid.” 

“Ouch,” Andrew says, another smile pulling up his lips. He doesn’t disagree, he hates his own medication and state of mind when he’s high during the day, he hates remembering Aaron shortly after they met, enough to understand. “That’s judgemental.”

“I’m not going to apologize for thinking you’re being stupid.”

“Is your spine the spine of the righteous?” Andrew asks him, ripping open another packet and spilling the contents into his mouth. “Are you trying your best to step on my toes because you’re feeling the tragic weight of the holier than thou?” 

“Righteousness is for people who don’t know any better,” Neil says and Andrew thinks ah because he might have a little point there. 

“Easy, easy,” Nicky says and distributes shots around the table. There’s a shot glass for Neil, filled with soda and another dose of cracker dust inside of it. “Dust isn’t bad. It just makes the night more interesting. You think Kevin would risk his future over a night out at the club?”

“What future?” Neil asks and Kevin glares at him. 

“Drink with us if you won’t do dust with us,” Nicky says and holds his open packet in one hand and his shot in the other. “Down the hatch on three.” 

Andrew downs his shot before Nicky starts counting and he fixes his eyes on Neil as he raises his glass and drinks. He can see the moment Neil notices something is wrong with his soda and tries to lurch to his feet. It would be hard to miss that his drink is laced with anything with a normal glass, but there’s only so much space in a shot glass for both soda and dust. Andrew reaches out, tangles his fingers in Neil’s hair and slams him back into his seat, pulling his head back as he does. He slams Neil’s hand flat against the tabletop, his skin burning at the contact. 

“Just noticed, didn’t you?” Andrew asks. It’s odd, if only a little, that someone as skittish and observant at Neil hadn’t noticed that there was anything wrong with his drink until now. “You’re an idiot.” 

“Y-you—” Neil sputters and suddenly there’s anger again, pressing against Andrew’s ribcage and threatening to crush it into dust. 

“Did you think you were safe because you were up there ordering your own drinks?” Stupid, so so stupid. “Roland knows what it means when I bring outsiders here.” 

Neil manages to wretch his hand from under Andrew’s and Andrew’s gives his head a yank that has Neil hissing and going still. He slides out of his chair and leans against Neil, and it’s pushing at Andrew, at his boundaries, they’re like an elastic band ready to snap at any moment.

“Almost there,” he says, looking at the impossible blue of Neil’s eyes and past the wild look in them, at his pupils that are blown wide. “Give it a minute and then it’ll really hit. Until then, why don’t you go have a little fun?” It’s a request more than a question. Movement will make the drugs more prominent in Neil’s blood, they will do their job faster and Andrew wants to get this over with, wants to know if he can wash his hands clean of Neil or get rid of him. “The night is still young.” 

Andrew lets go of Neil and resists the urge to wipe his hand at his shirt in an attempt to get rid of the feeling stretching his senses apart. He watches as Neil tries to reach for Andrew, and keeps watching as Aaron, who got up when Neil noticed his laced soda, grabs the back of his chair and pulls hard enough to topple it over. 

Anyone else would’ve maybe appreciated the gesture, but Andrew isn’t dumb enough to read anything more into it. It wasn’t meant to be protective and Andrew doesn’t need anyone to protect him — he told Aaron this much and looks at his brother as he and Nicky try to haul Neil away from the table. 

“Is this necessary?” Kevin asks into his drink and then swiftly downs it. “I’m sure you could’ve tried to talk to Neil.”

Andrew just looks at Kevin. Considers kicking him out of his chair. 

“You know, like normal people do.”

“Oh, but Kevin,” Andrew says and he lets his voice go sweet. “Don’t you listen to people when they say that I’m not normal? Because you should.” 

Kevin frowns. “Neil—”

“Isn’t anymore normal than I am.” Andrew stands up and puts the empty glass he had his fingers wrapped around back on the table. “You are boring me, come up with something more interesting next time.” 

It’s almost too easy to find Neil on the dancefloor down the stairs. He stands out like a sore thumb, even with the lights flashing and bodies moving around him — or maybe especially because of that. He stumbles away from a couple of strangers when Andrew comes closer, pushing people out of his way as he goes, head turning left and right and obviously searching for the exit. 

Off putting, to see someone whose eyes fix on every exit immediately upon entering a room not being able to find it when they need it. 

Andrew touches the small of Neil’s back and pushes him. It sends Neil crashing into the wall and it’s not what Andrew was going for but he doesn’t complain as he props his shoulder against the wall out of arm reach. Neil glares at him like he wants to rip his throat open, his natural eye color give the whole thing a new touch. 

“Such ingratitude,” Andrew says. “Those drinks were expensive.” 

“I hate you.”

“Take a number and get in line with the rest of this team,” Andrew says, not letting it bother him. Those people can hate him all he want, can say whatever they want about him behind his back. Andrew doesn’t care about them. “I won’t lose any sleep over it.” 

“Don’t sleep. I’ll kill you.” 

“Will you?” Andrew asks. He doesn’t doubt that Neil would try and if his suspicions about Neil are true, if he stands in contact with Riko Moriyama, there might even be a chance of success. “Will you do it yourself, or will you pay someone else to handle the mess? You certainly have enough money to outsource it to a proper hit man. One wonders what a no-one like you is doing with such a fortune.” 

“I found it on the sidewalk.” 

Did he? Andrew thinks the likeliness of Neil being one of Riko Moriyama’s associates is very high. It’s the easiest suspicion of all, the one that ties almost everything neatly together. The timing of one of their former teammates almost dying and then a know-nothing coming to Wymack’s, and most importantly Kevin’s, attention seems so convenient. A know-nothing who just happens to have the entire backstory of Kevin and Riko’s public lives hidden away in a binder in his room and seems to be as obsessed with Exy as Kevin is. 

Neil being a pet that does all of Riko’s dirty work seems like a very, very likely idea as to how he would get to so much money. Andrew doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it at all. 

“Really,” Andrew drawles and pauses for a moment. “Is that why you don’t spend it, or do you just like looking like a homeless person? The team is split, you know. Most of them think you’re trailer trash like Dan,” he goes on, thinking about a conversation he had overheard in the locker room after practice on Wednesday. “Renee knows better. So do I. I think you’re something a little more like us.” Andrew leans forward to see him better under the flashing lights and enunciates every syllable as he says, “Runaway.”

The full body flinch Neil gives is interesting. A runaway that got caught in a sticky net of intrigue and money he couldn't get out of, maybe? “Mind your own business.” 

No, Andrew doesn’t think he will. “Tonight is Mind Neil’s Business Night,” Andrew says. “Didn’t you notice? Give me something real or I won’t let you stay here.” 

“This isn’t your team. It isn’t your stay.” 

Oh no, the Foxes certainly aren’t Andrew’s. But he knows, and every single member does too, that he would have no problems getting rid of someone when he thinks they could potentially endanger Kevin, Nicky or even Aaron. 

“Don’t tempt me to prove you wrong. How about I call the police and ask them to run a real check on you? You think they’ll find something interesting?” 

“That’s a hollow threat,” Neil says. “The police would never do favors for someone like you.”

“I know a cop who would,” Andrew says, thinking of brown hair and green eyes. “If I called him tonight and told him you’re a serious problem child, he’d make it a priority.” It’s not entirely the truth, but it’s something Neil certainly doesn’t need to know. Not now, not ever. “How cold is your trail?”

“Shut up,” Neil says. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” 

“Because I don’t like the way you look at him,” Andrew says. It’s maybe a little hypocritical coming from him, Wymack’s words from Sunday still on his mind as if he said them a moment ago. He looks at Neil, at his blue eyes and dark hair and voices his thoughts, “Edgar Allan is in our district and you are on my team. You, a know-nothing from Arizona who somehow managed to catch Kevin’s eye. You, a lie from head to foot, with a bag full of money and a hard-on for everything Kevin and Riko. Do you understand?” 

Neil does, apparently, with the way he starts glaring at Andrew. Not that it has much effect when he can’t even stand on his own two legs at the moment. “I’m not a mole. Are you kidding me?” 

“Prove it,” Andrew tells him, satisfied that Neil got what he was hinting at. He really hopes for Neil that he isn’t one, because otherwise Andrew will have to come up with something to say to Wymack when they come back one player less. “You take a minute to think it over. Think how badly you want to try my patience right now. I’ll be back.” 

Andrew pushes away from the wall and slips into the crowd without looking back. He catches Nicky’s eye on the way back to their table and barely raises his eyebrow, which is enough to get his cousin moving again. Aaron follows after a few seconds. 

There’s not a single cell in him that is even slightly surprised that Kevin is slouched over his drink and looking at the liquid as if it holds the answers to the universe. No, Andrew is not surprised but he does end up kicking Kevin’s chair when he sits back down. It’s purely coincidental, of course. 

“Mom?” Kevin mumbles, completely out of it. 

And Andrew just looks at him. Looks at him and waits for Kevin to come back to his senses, which does happen one moment later and Andrew watches as he clears his throat and pretends nothing happened. Andrew is fine with that, so he empties the last full glass apart from Kevin’s, is about to get up to get another round when he hears his name being called. 

The first thing he notices is the tight, annoyed expression on Aaron’s face. And a split second later he sees the arm over his shoulder and then the reason for his annoyance. Neil’s haid is hanging into his face, his limbs hanging down and the rest of his body resembles a doll with its strings cut more than a human. 

There’s a bruise over his eye and something in Andrew’s ribcage flickers, like a defect lighter trying to come to life and he ignores it, and focuses on his brother instead. “Knock him out?” 

“No.” Aaron huffs and nods to his right. There’s a man standing next to Nicky, shorter than his cousin but taller than Neil. His face is pinched together, his eyes wide. “He did.” 

“I’m—I’m so sorry,” the man says and holds up his hands. “He gave me hundred bucks for it.” 

Oh, that—that is certainly interesting. Andrew knows there’s a chance that Nicky somehow got more dust into Neil’s system and he also knows that more would’ve eventually loosened Neil’s tongue. He’s sure Neil did that to avoid all of his precious secrets spilling out of him like water out of a full glass. 

“We’re going,” Andrew says and stands up. He pretends not to notice Kevin’s disappointed look and sends Nicky a look when he offers to help carry Neil, his earlier comments washed away by his withdrawal but not forgotten — they never will be. 

They make their way out of the club (Nicky pats the man’s shoulder sympathetically) and into the night. The outside of Eden’s Twilight is swallowed by a dark blanket of pure black. There are street lamps that point to where the car is parked, but Andrew thinks they would’ve found their way in the dark and only with the silvery light of the moon setting the street under their feet alive. 

It’s quiet save for the noise of Neil’s boots dragging on the floor as Aaron pulls him along. Nicky’s silence holds until they’re at the car and Andrew catches his brother’s eye to point to the passenger’s seat 

“Poor Neil,” his cousin says as he looks down at Neil’s passed out form. 

“I think he had it coming,” Aaron says as he gets into the car after Kevin. 

“Oh, yes. Poor Neil,” Andrew says and closes the door. “Poor, poor little Neil.” 

The drive to their house is quiet with Kevin quietly snoring, Aaron typing away on his phone and Nicky throwing glances at Neil. Andrew drives fast, as fast as he always does, and he imagines the speed carrying him, helping him to detach from the ground and fly. 

He wraps his hands tight around the steering wheel, glances into the night sky for all but a second. Looks at the infinite patterns of the stars sprinkled across the black canvas of the universe, brighter in the cold glow of the moon. He used to wish to be one of them, when he was younger, to be floating in the eternal quiet of the universe and be surrounded by phenomenal life forms other than humans. To be able to be his own without really being. 

Andrew changes lanes, ignores the honks sounding behind him and just drives. 

Their house in Columbia is seven minutes away from Eden’s Twilight, a short way off the interstate and in a small neighborhood. Andrew pulls into the driveway, looks at the grey paint splattering the outer walls of the house in the glare of the car’s front lights and twists the key to turn off the engine. 

He gets out of the car without another word and the others follow suit. Even Kevin, who looks more asleep than awake and immediately walks to the front door to lean against it. Andrew points at Nicky in warning and waits until Aaron throws Neil’s arm over his shoulder again with a grimace before heading to the door and unlocking it. 

Kevin promptly falls on his face in the entrance hall, the creme colored carpet softening his landing. He lets out a mumbled curse and gets up again to trudge up the stairs. 

“Nicky’s room,” Andrew says without looking at Aaron and Aaron gives an affirmative grunt. It makes sense, to put him there. It’s on the first floor and as far away from Kevin’s room as possible. It’s also further away from Andrew’s room than, say, Aaron’s would be but he isn’t concerned about his own safety. 

“Yes!” Nicky says and closes the front door. “In case he gets cold, I can just—”

Andrew slips two fingers under his armband, lets the cool metal of the closest knife wash over him. “I don’t think you understand,” he says and Nicky audibly swallows. A toilet flushes on the second floor and the sound of something, most likely Kevin’s body, hitting a door echoes through the quiet. “You’re sleeping on the couch, right?” 

“Oh, yes, of course.” His cousin looks away and takes a step to fling himself onto the couch. “The couch is cool! Totally comfortable and nice.” 

Andrew levels a cool look at him and waits until Aaron comes out of Nicky’s room alone until he turns and walks upstairs. The sound of his boots hitting the wooden stairs resembles gunshots. His room is on the left, and Andrew locks his door after slipping inside. He kicks off his boots and walks to his bed. Let’s himself fall onto it, looks at the ceiling and thinks. 

Neil Josten is a door, closed and tightly locked with secrets hidden on the other side. It’s blank and impossible to open; there isn’t a keyhole that can be picked or kicked in, there is no visible way of entering without being invited in. 

But, Andrew thinks later with the cool wall at his back and his armbands stuffed under his pillow, he’s not opposed to breaking it down completely and look and pull and inspect the truths to Neil’s lies, even if it has to be with his bare hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> v small warning for an even smaller mention of riko but other than that, please enjoy!

The sound of something hitting wood has Andrew reaching for his armbands under his pillow before his eyes snap open, his pulse racing in his ears and fingertips brushing the cold metal of his knives. He’s sitting up in a matter of seconds, his muscles tense and ready to move. The wall is solid and cool at his back and Andrew lets it ground him, lets the feeling of hard concrete behind him keep him up as air fills his lungs in a slow breath. 

A mumbled “fuck” reaches his ears, followed by the sound of another door opening and closing.

It’s what brings Andrew to blink, to pull his hand out from under his pillow and forcibly relax the tight hold he has on the dark fabric of his armband. It’s Saturday morning, he reminds himself as his mind starts to catch up and his heart resumes its normal, strong rhythm. He’s in his room in Columbia, the door tightly closed and locked, his key a barricade for any unwanted visitors. 

He’s as sober as he can be, he is safe. 

The next breath Andrew takes comes easier, the following one has him moving. A chill works its way up his spine as his bare feet make contact with the floor but Andrew doesn’t mind. It’s a reminder, a voice that sounds like it belongs to Bee says into the silence of his mind, a reminder that he’s here in the present and still alive. 

Dust particles fly through the air when he gets up from the bed, visible in the beam of sunlight streaming in through the window. It’s warm on the exposed skin of Andrew’s legs as he makes his way through the room. It’s enough to make Andrew’s muscles loosen, the tension bleeding out of him all at once. 

Aaron walks out of the bathroom and Andrew pushes past him. Andrew doesn’t want to look at his brother, the same way Aaron doesn’t want to look at him; but it’s a reflex, to search for injuries he knows aren’t there, that forced its way under his skin years ago. 

Andrew lets it stay and nestle right next to where the familiar weight of their promise presses down on his ribcage. 

He collects Kevin on his way downstairs, wakes him up with a well aimed fist to wall near where his headpiece should be located. The faint groan he gets in response is only amusing him a little. 

“Rise and shine,” Andrew says with fake cheer as Kevin crawls into the hallway a minute later. Pillow creases are visible on his cheekbone, all the way up to his face tattoo that Andrew avoids looking at, and there’s drool at the corner of his mouth. 

Kevin doesn’t answer, his eyes barely open, but he follows Andrew when he crooks a finger in wordless command and the stairs creak under their combined weight. 

The TV is running in the living room, the volume of a game show turned almost all the way down. Nicky and Aaron sit side by side on the sofa, both drowsy eyed and with sleep still clinging to them. 

“Morning,” Nicky says and then promptly yawns into his hand, his jaw cracking with the force of it. “Neil’s still out like a light,” he adds when Andrew just looks at him and Andrew turns around, almost bumping into Kevin when he leaves the room again. 

“Where are you going?” Nicky asks and yawns again. 

“Out.” 

“Do you want me to—”

Andrew doesn’t look at him or his brother when he shoves his feet into his boots and motions for Kevin to do the same, but he does grab his car keys like a weapon, wraps his fingers around the familiar shape of them and points them at his cousin in a silent warning. 

The door slams shut behind Andrew and Kevin, cutting off whatever Nicky was about to say. 

*

The clock reads nine thirty when Andrew pulls into the driveway of the house and Kevin has fallen asleep in the passenger seat again. The imprints of his pillow have faded in the time they were out to get food and a new line of drool runs down the corner of his mouth. If Andrew wasn’t sober, he thinks he would wake him up with a smack and lecture him about unhealthy sleeping schedules — which would only be a little hypocritical but Andrew doesn’t care. 

As it is, he only takes the paper bags with their freshly purchased breakfast from Kevin’s lap to put them down between their seats, leans over Kevin’s body to nudge the passenger door open, plants his boot in Kevin’s side and shoves him out of the car.

Andrew gets out of the car to the sound of the yelp Kevin lets out when his body connects with the grass covered ground. He walks around the car, the papers bags in his hands still warm and spares a glace down. “How is sitting still that difficult for you?” 

Kevin huffs and puffs on the ground as he gets up and Andrew is once again reminded the comparison he drew between his teammate and an elderly person when he was on his medication. Not that he says that much. 

He unlocks the door with the sun already beating down at his back and Kevin seems to be stretching to his right. Andrew suddenly wishes he had taken his pack of cigarettes with him. The rush of cold air is welcomed on his overheated skin. It sips between his clothes, wraps around him and stays. 

Something clattering to his right has Andrew turning to the kitchen instead of the living room and he finds Nicky crouching on the ground. He’s surrounded by glass shards that catch in the faint light coming in through the window and transform into glittering diamonds.

Andrew watches, waits for a moment for the unavoidable act of Nicky grabbing a splinter too hard but he doesn’t and looks up instead. 

“Oh, welcome back.” Nicky chuckles, points at a little puddle to his left. “I don’t think Neil likes us very much right now.” 

It’s not a surprise to Andrew, neither is the fact that he apparently upended his glass onto the floor after the last night. He doesn’t expect Neil to trust them, to trust him, again after the Dust; though he highly doubts that someone like Neil, who carried his duffle bag around almost everywhere the first days after coming here, ever trusted them in the first place. Which is, like Andrew had said the night before, not a dumb thing to do — Andrew himself can count the number of people he trusts on one hand. 

“Where is he?” Andrew asks and the paper bags rustle as he puts them down on the counter. He leaves the room before his cousin can answer and walks into the living room, seeing Aaron sitting on the sofa in a similar position he was in earlier and with his phone out. The familiar heat of anger spikes deep in his chest but Andrew ignores it.

The door to Nicky’s door is open, the sheets on the bed rustled. Parts of an alarm clock are laying on the floor, near the doorframe and the room smells of sweat and vomit. 

It’s not his room, so Andrew leaves everything as it is and turns around. He can hear the sound of the shower running and walks to the bathroom to lean against the wall, impatience eating away at him. 

Neil isn’t as dumb as Andrew believed him to be. He neatly avoided spilling his secrets, kept the door shut and locked tightly and impossible to open. He didn’t do himself any favors by getting knocked out voluntarily, however. It makes Andrew wonder what ugly things Neil is hiding, because there absolutely has to be something. Something more than his binder, something that connects _to_ the binder and Andrew will find out. 

The calm pitter-patter of the artificial rain hitting the tiles of the shower is almost enough to lull Andrew in a trance, his eyes burn and he blinks it away. Keeps them focused on the dark wood of the door. And then he frowns as he hears the sound of the pipes moaning, the sound of the hot water running out. 

He listens closer, tunes out the tv in the living room close by, the small murmurs coming from the kitchen as Kevin and Nicky converse. 

Something is wrong, his mind tells him. He is used to the sound of water hitting tiles as the water gets warm, as the cold hurls down the drain; he has it in his memory like anything he ever saw and it’s enough to notice that there’s something missing. It doesn’t take a second longer for him to realize the water isn’t hitting anything else, it doesn’t make contact with a body, with someone standing in the shower.

It would be fitting for Neil to run, to avoid telling the truth and answering questions, wouldn’t it? 

Andrew feels his mouth crack open, lips chapped from the heat outside. “How long has he been in there?” 

“What?” Aaron asks. Andrew hears him standing up from the sofa, the dark leather creaking as he does. “I don’t know. Nicky helped him inside shortly after you guys left.” Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew can see Aaron stepping closer and leaning against the wall out of reach. “Why is that important?” 

Andrew doesn’t answer as he tries the doorknob to find the door locked from the inside. His clothes rustle as he crouches down and swipes one of the hair pins clipped to his left armband free. He inserts it into the keyhole and the craziest urge to laugh bubbles up inside of him when it hits something not even half way in. 

Smart, he thinks, to lock the door and not remove the key. He can’t even fault Neil for this, he does it himself every time he’s in the comfort of his own room here. But it’s still annoying him and pulling his patience thinner like an elastic band. And he keeps pulling and pulling on it until it will eventually snap. 

“What are you doing?” Kevin asks from his left, apparently having noticed the small commotion.

Andrew ignores him and Nicky saying his name in question. He stands back up, grasps the doorframe with his hands and thrusts his left foot with all the force he can muster without having any food in his stomach. 

And then his dark boot slams into the door and dust falls from the wall and whirls up a small cloud of colored fog as it connects with the wood. The door gives a sickening crack like snapping bones as wood splinters, the frame wobbles and the whole doorknob separates from it, sending small shards of wood and two screws onto the floor. 

“What the hell?” Aaron curses but Andrew ignores him as the door pops open with enough might to bang against the tiles inside of the bathroom loudly. 

Air, hot and humid, hits him as he enters. The door swings back and Kevin lets out a pained groan as it hits him, but Andrew almost doesn’t notice. He does, however, notice that the white translucent window between the fogged up mirror and the still running shower is open. It’s isn’t exactly big, but it is big enough for a someone with a small body, someone like Neil, to fit through with minimal struggling. 

Someone turns the shower off and Andrew looks down, notices two foil packets on the ground near the toilet (notices the half closed lid a second later) and he snatches it up. The small, black print on it lets him know that it held contacts and Andrew feels like laughing again. 

Runaway is what he had called Neil the night before as he had leaned against the wall of Eden’s Twilight surrounded by the sweaty, dancing crowd and the flashing lights had not been enough to hide Neil’s full body flinch. 

It’s no secret that Neil got himself knocked out to avoid saying something, to avoid being truthful, and him running from Columbia instead of facing Andrew is oh so very interesting, isn’t it? What, if not a mole for Riko Moriyama, can be bad enough to keep avoiding saying it, to keep lying and lying and lying, Andrew wonders. 

He blinks and thinks back to what made him so suspicious in the first place, apart from Neil’s odd behavior, what solidified his thought and stops. Takes a breath against the sudden emotion deep in his gut easily recognizable as anger. 

It’s there for all but a second, sharp and hot, then it slides off of him like the droplets of cold water running down the smooth white tiles decorating the wall in the shower before they eventually reach the drain. The feeling disappears like the water will, there and gone, and it’s a stark reminder that Andrew doesn’t need, a reminder that he’s still sober without a drop of medicine running through his body. 

And then, without turning around, Andrew says, “We’re leaving.” 

Andrew’s car flies down the highway above the speed limit, the engine roaring and purring, fast enough that Andrew waits for it to stop touching the ground as he snaps between lanes without looking. He manages to bridge the distance between Columbia and Palmetto in half the time Nicky would’ve taken and his wheels squeak in protest as he turns into a free parking lot in front of Fox Tower without the patience to slow down first. 

The drive was less than an hour the evening before and every other time they went to Columbia and Andrew knows that if Neil wants to collect his binder before he goes and he will. The possibility of Neil running without looking back is high but Andrew is positive he won’t do it without his binder, not when he is so protective of it and when it holds as much information as Andrew thinks it has to. 

His brother and cousin get out of the car in silence, Nicky clutching the breakfast bag to his chest like someone else would hold a kitten, and Andrew almost takes pleasure in pressing down on the horn long enough that it has Kevin snapping awake in the passenger seat. 

He ignores the glare Kevin levels at his face and shoos him out of the and into the elevator in Fox Tower before taking the stairs himself in a try to let off some steam. 

The hallway isn’t empty when he arrives. Nicky and Matt are standing in front of suite 321, Matt with a glare on his face that’s almost impressive and Nicky with pleading eyes and his hands up as if in defense. 

“It isn’t our fault that Neil slipped out of the bathroom!” Nicky says as Andrew comes closer. “We offered him to ride with us here, we didn’t force him to go.” 

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Nicky,” Dan’s voice says from somewhere; her frame hidden behind Matt’s taller and broader body. “I know what you guys get up to in Columbia. It is very much your fault, stop pushing the blame away from yourself because you are far from innocent.” She clenches her fists at her sides. “You should drive back immediately and search for him.” 

“We didn’t do anything, I swear!” 

“Now listen—”

Andrew bodily forces himself between them when Matt makes as if to take a step towards his cousin. “How about you listen,” he says, his left hand hovering over the armband on his right arm, “and back off?” 

Despite being over a foot taller than Andrew himself, Matt takes a step back and Andrew’s lung expand with the next breath he takes. 

“Not so hard now, was it?” It’s not phrased as a question and no one answers him, not that Andrew expected otherwise. One look at him, at the darkness he knows is swirling in his eyes to reflect his emotional state and the blankness of his face, should be enough to tell them that he’s sober. That he’s ready to cut someone open without batting an eyelash. He turns his eyes to Matt, to where he’s blocking the entrance of their suite with his body. “Move.” 

“This isn’t your room,” Dan says, crossing her arms and glaring at him. Her anger might be justified for what Andrew did to Matt, but it got boring very, very fast after a week. 

“It isn’t yours either,” Aaron says from behind Andrew and Dan narrows her eyes. 

“Move,” Andrew tells Matt for the second time, his hand still close to his armband and fingers itching for the cool comfort of his knives. He is so close to the binder, so close to whatever Neil is trying desperately to hide and he knows it would either put another drop of water into the glass that he is and bring it to spill or drain it like a bathtub. 

He’s so close to finding another piece of the unrecognizable puzzle, so close to learning another word in the language the book titled Neil Josten is written that he considers just making Matt move out of his way. 

“Try me,” Dan snaps and crosses her arms. “What’s your big problem with Neil? Leave him alone, he’s got as much right to be here as any of us do so stop trying to scare him away.” 

Danielle Wilds, Andrew thinks with familiar words circling through his mind, words he has heard not too long ago. As much Wymack’s daughter as she isn’t.

“You’re awfully protective over a no one you barely even know, aren’t you?” 

“He’s a Fox,” Dan says as if that explains everything. And he guesses for people like them, it does explain everything. What they see in Neil is a broken human that needs to be taken under someone’s wing and it’s so far off from the danger Andrew sees in him that it’s absurd.

It’s no surprise that Neil fits right in; not a single person on this team is what could be considered normal, after all. All of them fuck-ups. How sad. 

“Andrew,” someone says to his right and the soft and quiet voice might be enough to trick everyone else but not Andrew. He sees right through it, hears the dangerous layer underneath the facade that mirrors his almost to a tee. Renee walks into his sight, her pale her up in a bun and a few strands framing her face. “Hello.” 

There’s darkness in her eyes, carefully hidden away in a try to be better than that, to leave the past in the past, and it looks Andrew directly in the face. He doesn’t say anything but moves his hand to his side and away from his armbands, away from his knives and she smiles a little bit more. 

Here’s the thing: the Foxes are divided, have always been divided in two groups but for Andrew and Renee it goes deeper than that. While Andrew has his lot, his family, that he keeps close through the promises binding them together, Renee looks after the rest. Hurting one of hers wouldn’t be okay and Andrew respects Renee enough to recognize that and step back, even if he clenches his teeth as he does. 

“You are back early,” Renee notes and the upperclassmen just stand there and watch. They call Renee a peace maker and Andrew guesses that she is, but they think that she put a leash on him, on their monster, and if Andrew wasn’t sober, he’d laugh at the thought. “Lunch?” 

Andrew doesn’t answer, but he looks at her and returns her gaze for a moment before turning around. There’s no need to keep trying getting into the suite and ripping the binder apart page for page with Dan and Matt guarding the door like that, especially not if he can’t force his way past them with Renee there. 

The door to the girls’ suite opens when Andrew follows Aaron and Nicky into their dorm, heels click against the floor as someone steps out. 

“Can you keep it the fuck down?” Allison snaps and Renee replies with soft words Andrew doesn’t want to make out and can’t as the door closes behind him. 

*

It doesn’t take nearly as long as Andrew had guessed it would for his phone to start vibrating with an incoming call inside his pocket. He looks down at the stubbed out cigarettes on the windowsill and pulls the phone out of his pocket, not looking at the caller ID as he answers. 

“David.” 

“You have five seconds to get your fucking psycho ass to my apartment!” Andrew taps the ash off the cigarette between his fingers, watches it fall out of the window and wonders what it would feel like to be carried by the wind for all but a second. Wymack takes a breath and Andrew holds the phone an inch away from his ear to avoid having his eardrums busted. “You even think about telling me no and I swear to god I’ll throw Kevin’s contract down a garbage disposal.” 

The call ends before Andrew has a chance to say anything, not that he would have, and he snaps his phone shut to push it back into his pocket. He lets his cigarette join the others and doesn’t bother with closing the window as he slips from the table and ignores his brothers curious look. 

_“You wouldn’t really cut Kevin”_ is what Andrew had said to Wymack on Sunday before falling asleep on his couch with alcohol in his stomach and his bones feeling heavier than his body could handle, and he is sure Wymack wouldn’t or he _was_ sure — so sure of it — and now he _isn’t_ and it makes him drive fast. Wild. 

Andrew picks the lock to Wymack’s apartment and has all but a second to look around at the familiar sight of his living room before his Coach rounds on him with a glare that Andrew has only seen once before. It was after the Matt fiasco a year ago, and Andrew takes a breath. Of course the similarities of what happened, even if there aren’t even that many to begin with, have Wymack seething. 

So he closes the door behind him and doesn’t say anything, just keeps his eyes trained on the wall opposite of him as Wymack starts walking up one side of him and down the other. Andrew counts the spiderwebs decorating the place where ceiling and wall meet each other and makes it to fifteen before the door that parts living room and hall opens. 

“Have a nice stroll?” Andrew asks Neil when he steps in, and then takes the time he needs to blink to look at him. His dark hair is wet and droplets of water run down from the tips, into the collar of the shirt he’s wearing. The light spilling inside the apartment catches the length of Neil’s jawline, as sharp as the blades Andrew carries around with him. 

It’s infuriating to look at, but so are Neil’s eyes (dark again, covered with colored contacts).

Neil returns his stare with a heated, “Fuck you.” 

The attitude problem, right. 

Wymack snaps his fingers in front of Andrew’s face and Andrew has the urge to slap his hand away. “I don’t know what the beef is between you two--,” but he does, doesn’t he? Or at least a part of it, a very small part, since he heard it a few days ago. “--but it ends here and now. Abby and I made it clear we wouldn’t tolerate a repeat of last year, Andrew.” 

“This isn’t a repeat,” Andrew says, and it’s almost frustrating that he has to say this again. Getting Matt clean last year was a necessary thing, unavoidable and more for Aaron’s sake than his own. Neil isn’t an addict to anything else but Exy and while that is a problem in terms of getting on his nerves, there’s more to worry about with him. “We only gave him crackers. You think he’d have made it back here on his own otherwise?” 

“Don’t ‘only’ me. What the fuck were you thinking?” 

It’s similar to what they already went over and they’re going to turn in circles because Andrew doubts that Wymack will see his point without Andrew mentioning Neil’s binder. Maybe he should. But Andrew is an instigator at heart before he is anything else, so he responds with, “What were you thinking, bringing him here?” 

“Coach,” Neil says before Andrew has the chance of going on. “I need to talk for Andrew for a minute. Can we use your office?” 

“No,” Wymack says, which is predictable. “I don’t trust you two not to kill each other, so you’re staying right here until this is resolved.” 

Neil looks like he’s contemplating something, his jaw working and Andrew wishes he could read thoughts for all but a split second. “What the hell is your problem?” Neil asks and everything in Andrew screeches to a complete stop. Andrew feels as if he’s caught midair, too far from the ground to calculate how long his fall will take, he’s hovering in the clouds, feet and arms dangling. His heart misses a beat and picks up faster instead at Neil’s words, spoken in German. “How can you threaten Nicky for coming onto me but condone drugging me out of my mind against my will? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

All irritation that had been awoken from its slumber evaporates. Hearing Neil pronounce words in yet another language, finding another puzzle piece that doesn’t fit anywhere, is by lengths more interesting than anything else. 

“That’s unexpected,” Andrew says in German, because it is. “Did no one tell you I hate surprises?” 

“What makes you think I care?” 

Oh, Andrew doesn’t think he does. “How many languages do you speak, runaway?” 

“Tell me why you did that,” Neil says and ignores his question exactly how Andrew thought he would. 

“I already did,” Andrew says ( _“I’m not a mole. Are you kidding me?” “Prove it.”_ ) and looks from Neil’s left eye into his right and back. “I’m still waiting for your answer.”

“I answered you. I told you I’m not a mole. You’re insane if you think I am.” 

Oh Neil, Andrew thinks, hasn’t a single person on this team told you that I am? “Then correct me.” 

“Give me a reason.” 

“Besides the obvious?” Andrew asks him. “If I can’t get an answer from you, I’ll get it wherever I can.” He hopes Neil can hear the honesty in his voice, not that Andrew ever lies. “How about I start with your parents?” 

“Good luck,” Neil says and then the little color that was in his face drains from it. It’s an interesting reaction and Andrew looks at it, stores it for later. “They’re dead.” 

It does connect some dots in his theory, and it makes Neil look worse than he already does. If his parents are dead, does it mean the Moriyamas took him in? Is that how he got to all the money? He took up a job from them and earns loads? The possibilities are endless. 

“Did you kill them?” Andrew asks. That would be another possibility. 

“Did you kill yours?” 

“I don’t have parents,” Andrew says, not lying, and flicks his fingers in a dismissive gesture. He doesn’t consider the woman that raised Aaron his mother and never will and he didn’t shed a single tear on her funeral. The poor sap who got her pregnant in the first place is out of the picture and matters as little to Andrew as Tilda does. 

“I didn’t kill my parents,” Neil forces out, looking like words rip him open on the way out. And he keeps sounding like that when he continues, the words coming out in jagged pieces, “Riko’s family did.” 

Andrew looks at Neil, looks into his dark eyes and searches for the truth in them. 

Neil audibly swallows. “My father was a gopher for a group who did business with the Moriyamas,” he starts tightly. Wymack’s head snaps up at the name but they both ignore him. “In the grand scheme of things he wasn’t worth much, but he knew a lot of names and he knew how to move product. He did some business out of Edgar Allan, which is how I met Kevin and Riko. I didn’t know who they were back then. I was just excited to meet kids my age. I thought we were going to be friends.” 

So far, nothing he said sounds like a lie in Andrew’s eyes. 

“Then my father started getting cocky, started getting stupid, and tried skimming from payments,” Neil continues, the color still gone from his face and oddly unfitting with his dark hair and eyes. “He took Moriyama money that was meant for his boss. They found out, of yourse. The Moriyamas executed him and my mother before his boss could get to him. I took what he’d stolen and ran. I’ve been running ever since.” 

Andrew isn’t smiling, hasn’t been smiling since his medication forced its way out of his system the evening before. But there’s a smile curving across Neil’s lips and it looks wrong and out of place. Sick and ghastly. 

“I’m lucky Kevin doesn’t recognize me,” Neil says and covers his mouth with the tips of his fingers, speaking through them. “I don’t know if he even remembers meeting me, but I remember him. Seeing him helps me remember my parents. He’s all I have left of my real life. But if Kevin or Riko recognize me and word makes it back to my father’s boss, I know what will happen to me.” 

It’s a lot of information at once and long overdue. Andrew takes it at once, pulls it apart and manages to fill some of the gaps in the puzzle. Like he’d thought and already had confirmed, Neil is a runaway and hiding in direct light from the big bad monsters chasing him. He guesses it makes sense that Neil has a binder full of stuff about Kevin and Riko, if he’s telling the truth. But why, Andrew thinks, would he lie about this right now? Why reveal something as big as the ability to speak another language only to lie? 

Andrew isn’t a sentimental person, he is far from being one, but he did understand clinging to memories like Neil does even if it is a long time ago. Him using Kevin as a kick start for his memory is odd, understandable but odd, but world better than Neil being a mole and feeding information to Riko Moriyama.

He doesn’t say anything of that (he can’t, not after having only minimal time to actually analyze what Neil said), but he does move closer to Neil and ignores the way Wymack shifts his weight as if ready to intervene. Andrew isn’t about to turn this violent, though, and stops right in front of Neil. 

His body radiates so much warmth that Andrew can feel it even if they’re not touching and Neil’s hair smells like the cheap shampoo he knows is standing in Wymack’s bathroom. 

“Then why did you come here?” 

“Because I’m tired,” Neil says and sounds half tired and half defeated as he says it. “I have nowhere else to go, and I’m too jealous of Kevin to stay away from him.” Ah, not a crush either, then. “He knows what it’s like to hate ever day of his life, to wake up afraid every day, but he’s got you at his back telling him everything’s going to be okay.” That’s—that’s not really how it works with Kevin and Andrew but Andrew let’s Neil talk. “He has everything, even when he’s lost everything, and I’m—” A runaway, a liar. Nothing in the grand scheme of things, it seems. “—nothing. I’ll always have and be nothing.” 

Andrew reaches up and uncurls Neil’s fingers from his mouth, suddenly needing to look at his whole face. And then he looks. There is darkness in Neil’s untrue dark eyes, and he remembers seeing a glimpse of it the evening before, there and gone in an instant. He wants to reach out, to pull it out and look at it closer but he doesn’t. There’s unfiltered honesty in a gaze that dark, and Andrew recognizes it from looks into the mirror when he’s sober. From looking at Renee sometimes when they spar. 

“Let me stay,” Neil says quietly and his breath hitting Andrew’s face, fresh and minty, is what has him blinking. “I’m not ready to give this up yet.” 

Something moves inside of Andrew as Neil changes from a real danger to Kevin’s future to another, unfamiliar danger that Andrew has no want to explore. He let’s go of Neil, blinks. “Keep it if you can. You and I both know it won’t last long.” 

“I’ll be gone by our match against Edgar Allan,” Neil says. “I don’t look now how I looked then,—” And that just unlocks another ten questions in Andrew that he doesn’t want to think about. “—but I can’t risk Riko’s family recognizing me.” 

“Such an unexpected will to survive from someone who has nothing to live for,” Andrew says and tilts his head to one side, considering. No, Neil might not be a real danger anymore, but he’s still a problem for Andrew in a way Andrew doesn’t want to. It shouldn’t be interesting but it is, terribly so. “Next time we have a little heart-to-heart like this, maybe I’ll ask you to justify that.” 

“Let’s not talk like this ever again.” 

“Let’s not,” Andrew agrees. His brain feels like it’s been scrubbed raw like laundry and his eyelids start to grow heavy. His fingers itch for another cigarette. 

Neil hesitates for one second, then asks, “Are you going to tell Kevin?” 

And risk Kevin climbing up the wall on all fours in panic? Not only does he want to avoid this at all costs, but Andrew doesn’t spill other people’s secrets. Or, not like that. “Don’t ask stupid questions.” 

Andrew watches as Neil sucks in a slow, rattling breath and closes his eyes, shielding his colored contacts from the world. 

He abruptly loses interest in being here, in Wymack’s apartment, and he knows why as his bones start to feel too heavy for his own body. “We’re leaving,” Andrew says in English and Neil opens his eyes again. 

“Where are we going?” 

“Back to the dorm,” Andrew says. “Your teammates have been annoying us ever since we got back, demanding we return to Columbia and scour the streets in search for you.” 

“He can stay here if he wants,” Wymack says, still not having moved from his earlier position. Andrew suddenly wonders how odd they must look, two men shorter than Wymack by a length having an intense conversation in a language the man doesn’t understand. 

Yeah, Andrew thinks as he gets the sudden urge to laugh, he definitely needs to go. 

“I can call Dan to let her know he’s safe.” 

Andrew doesn’t look at him, doesn’t take his eyes from Neil. “Neil wants to come with me.” Neil had trusted Andrew, not completely and Andrew isn’t fool enough to think so, but enough that Andrew doesn’t see the need to get rid of him and there shouldn’t be any need to hide behind their Coach now. 

“Thanks for the shower,” Neil says to Wymack. “I’ll wash your clothes and bring them back on Monday.” 

Wymack spends two seconds with looking between them, obviously wondering how they’d settled things so easily and at a disadvantage for not understanding German. “No rush.” 

“Going now,” Andrew says, and leads Neil outside. 

They don’t talk on the way back, not that Andrew wants to. He snaps between lanes, not as urgent as this morning but urgent enough with the sudden, despicable need for his medication and sleep. 

Wymack must have called ahead because all the Foxes are in the hallway waiting for them when they get back. Andrew easily locates his lot; Kevin, Aaron and Nicky are leaning against the wall near their suite door. 

The upperclassmen are standing in a small clump in the middle of the hallway outside of Dan’s room, and all of them look like worried parents. Their faces clear when they catch sight of Neil and Andrew swallows the urge to snort. 

It’s still odd to him, how fast and hard they got protective over Neil. 

“Are you okay?” Andrew can hear Dan ask but doesn’t turn to look at her as he shoves past Aaron and Nicky. 

“I’m fine,” Neil says. 

“Andrew?” Kevin asks, a thin layer of curiosity that makes Andrew want to trip him laced into his voice. 

Andrew pauses in the doorway and motions for Kevin to follow him. As soon as the door is closed behind them, Andrew hears the familiar rattle of his pill bottle and he hates them and the way they make him feel and he hates Kevin all in the same breath. 

“So? What is with—” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Andrew says and rips the bottle out of Kevin’s hands. The irritated noise Kevin makes when Andrew flicks the lid at him after opening it would have him laughing if he weren’t sober. “I’m washing my hands of this. Do whatever you want with your little mini-me but keep me out of it.” He takes one of the pills, throws it into his mouth and swallows it dry. “He’s your problem now.” 

He loosens his hold and lets the bottle fall, lets the mess of the pills spilling all over the floor for someone else to deal with and leaves the Kevin, Aaron and Nicky in the living room. The door connecting the living and bedroom closes with a quiet click behind him and Andrew almost opens it again just to slam it. 

After putting on his sweats, Andrew throws himself onto his bed and presses his back against the wall which gives him a perfect view of the whole room. His eyelids are already as heavy as cement; both his mind and his body exhausted after the day before and today, after the thinking and the short, hot burst of anger. 

Yes, Andrew thinks and catches his earlier train of thought to pull it back and rip it apart, Neil Josten might still be a problem one way or another, but now Andrew is not going to drop him from the roof to see if the birdie can actually fly or not. 

Neil isn’t his problem to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very small warning for mentions of riko
> 
> other than that, please enjoy!

Andrew lets Sunday pass slowly; he spends it medicated and holed up in their dorm, his mind clouded and in the haze of the artificial happiness of not being sober. He lets it wear off when the day starts to turn into evening, and dutifully leads the way to his car with Kevin in tow, feeling sluggish and heavy. 

“Practice with me,” Kevin says when he’s geared up and ready to go, looking up with the straps of his helmet twisted in his free hand. 

It’s irritating, Andrew thinks as he just stares at Kevin in the form of a non verbal ‘no’, how Kevin demands and demands stuff from people around him. And people usually agree, they eat out of the palm of his hand because he is Kevin Day. It doesn’t matter what or who. The world seems to be dying to give him everything he wants. 

Not Andrew though, not anytime soon, because there is no question to be answered, only a demand and Andrew doesn’t consider himself a dog even if others call him Kevin’s watchdog. So he says nothing, words too heavy in his mind to force them out and into the open, just turns around to search for a decent place in the stands to sit and watch as Kevin eagerly runs himself into the ground.

Andrew sees Neil on Monday again when they have practice, but his mind is happily medicated and his attention doesn’t anker its sharp claws in him for more than a glance. Barely there and gone again. He keeps watch from where he’s leaning on his racquet, follows the short and civil conversations Nicky and Aaron have with him. 

“We’re taking Neil with us,” Kevin says that evening when Andrew closes the door of their suite behind them. There is no surprise in him, not after the way Kevin had focused on Neil with a heavy stare all throughout practice, but there is a faint spark of annoyance buried deep under his ribcage. 

It isn’t a demand, not this time, but it’s close enough for Andrew to be irritated by it until the feeling bounces off of him. “Are we?” he asks but doesn’t stick around long enough for Kevin to answer. 

They don’t. 

*

Andrew feels like he’s been thrown into a cold, empty pool and gets swallowed by darkness when he comes down from his medication each evening in preparation to sleep shortly after. It wraps around his mind like tentacles, grips it tightly until they become one and Andrew feels the familiar blankness settle over himself; it’s a blanket, a hard, familiar blanket that he carries around with him like a superhero might carry a cape. 

“Neil is coming with us. I told him that it is time to collect what’s mine,” Kevin says and Andrew blinks at his back. Kevin told Neil, he didn’t _ask_.Then Kevin actually stops for a second and looks over his shoulder. “You don’t need to come with us, you know.” 

Oh, but he does because here’s the thing: Kevin’s ten foot tall ego makes Andrew want to fold him into a human paper airplane on a regular day, but he is still the man Andrew made a deal with — the man Andrew promised to protect. 

The promise binds them to one another, it connects them and stretches like a rubber band between them, and Andrew follows when Kevin tugs, because it’s what comes with the promise. It’s what he does, and it’s easier to do when both Nicky and Aaron are asleep and unable to pull him back. 

So no, he doesn’t even consider letting Kevin be alone with Neil to practice in the middle of the night on an empty Exy court — no matter how much he doesn’t care for this sport. 

Andrew just wags his fingers at him in answer, the movement causing the keys in his hold to clink together. He makes his way outside through the stairs, pulls out his cigarettes and puts them away again. Sleep is thick on his eyelids, weighing them down and making his whole body heavy in the way being sober does on bad days. 

Whereas the heat during the day is almost unbearable, the night air feels cool on Andrew’s exposed skin. It slips through the layers of his clothing and brushes against his soul.

It’s welcoming as he unlocks the car and gets it. Looking into a mirror would show him what he sees when he looks at his brother, but the difference between the temperature during the day and night are more similar (with the incredible humidity when the sun is up and the cool wind when it makes place for the moon to rise) to him than his own twin brother could be. 

The inside of his car is as quiet as his thoughts and Andrew is too tired to turn on the radio as he waits, so he folds his arms across the steering wheel to make a pillow for his head and closes his eyes. 

It doesn’t take too long until the door on the passenger’s side opens. A rush of cold air hits Andrew, mixed with body heat and the sound of clothes rustling as someone leans closer to him. “I can drive, you know.” 

Yes, Andrew is very much aware of the fact that Kevin can drive, he had seen as much with his own two eyes shortly after Kevin’s cast had been removed — but it wasn’t with Andrew’s car because Andrew doesn’t trust a lot of people with it, he can count the number on two of his fingers, especially not when people are actually inside of it. 

“The day I let you drive my car is the day I’m dead,” Andrew says because it’s the truth. Kevin is as much of an obnoxious asshole as Andrew thinks he is and he might drive slower and more careful than Andrew had seen actual old people drive but it doesn’t mean Kevin can drive this car. “Are you done or are we going back to bed?” 

Kevin lets out a heavy sigh as if Andrew is the one being difficult, as if he isn’t the one with the need to be up at ass o’clock for something as ridiculous as _Exy_ , and climbs in.

The door to the back opens and another body scoots into the middle. Andrew refrains from looking at Neil as he twists the key in the ignition and sits up to drive. There’s the needles and gentle warmth in him again, at the back of his neck and curving around his chest. Andrew ignores that as well. 

They make it to the stadium in the matter of minutes, the empty streets and the faint glow of the streetlamps are almost enough to lull Andrew in a trance. He follows the strikers inside and stops walking in the foyer to lean against the wall, solid and cool. 

When Kevin and Neil come back outside, he keeps his eyes on them as they gather their racquets and some gear, and then follows them into the inner ring where he turns. Walking up the stairs into the stands makes his body — less energetic now that he’s close to being sober and without the constant kaleidoscope look on the world — feel tight. 

Andrew sits down and focuses on a point on the wall on the other side of the stadium, lets the pitter patter of Kevin and Neil’s shoes slapping the floor down on the court as they run laps hit him like a wave of saltwater. 

There must be something wrong with him (and _that_ is truly hilarious) because he suddenly has the urge to look at Neil, to look for holes in the story he told Andrew and poke his fingers into them to pull, to stretch them big enough to uncover what might be hiding beneath. 

But he doesn’t because he washed his hands off Neil, and he meant it when he said that Neil was Kevin’s to deal with now. Even if he’s still a problem, he’s certainly not _Andrew’s_ problem, and Andrew would pick up an exy racquet and commit to the sport voluntarily before making him into it. 

An urge and not a want, Andrew thinks and closes his eyes for all but a second as Kevin and Neil start shooting at cones after a while. It’s good because Andrew doesn’t want anything. No, he wants nothing and he doubts that that will change even after he’s sober for good.

He has forcibly stopped wanting anything a long time ago, gave himself a slap on the wrists mentally every single time he found himself wanting things, and he’s not going to start again. Not now, not ever. 

“We’re finished for today,” Kevin says when he comes up the stands. He sounds happy in the way only Exy can make him sound, a mix of satisfaction and exhaustion. 

It’s nauseating. 

Andrew follows him down the stairs and takes his time setting one foot in front of the other. The clock reads twelve-thirty and the court floor is empty of balls and cones that had covered it and Andrew feels heavy with a different kind of exhaustion, his bones reacting like magnets to the earth's gravitational pull. 

He follows the strikers out of the lounge and into the cool night to drive them back to the dorm in silence. The radio plays quiet music that’s interrupted by a host's gentle murmur and Andrew can hear crickets sing outside through the small crack of the window. 

Later, Andrew lays in bed with his back pressed to the wall and lets the sounds of the shower running, the pipes screaming as water pumps through them, lull him into a trance as he waits for Kevin to enter the bedroom with eyes barely open. 

He doesn’t dream of anything that night. 

*

Andrew notices the way Nicky looks at Neil during practice on Wednesday just before his therapy session, even though he’s happily dosed up or maybe especially because of it. 

It’s not the same ogling he had done upon seeing Neil for the first time and the few times after, but it’s hesitant looks that turn into fake fascination at something around him when Neil returns the look. 

It takes Andrew until they’re both in his car and on the way to Reddins to decide that he actually doesn’t like that at all. 

“Nicky,” he says and effectively cuts off whatever it was his cousin had been talking about before. It was something about birds, Andrew’s sure, and that makes him think of the Ravens for all but a second before the thought is gone again. “I don’t think staring is a good trait, you should cut back on it.” 

Nicky turns his head to look at him when he sets the turn signal. “What are you—”

“You can’t see without your eyes, can you?” Andrew taps his fingers on the armrest and barely resists playing with the window controller. 

“Andrew, I—”

“You,” Andrew interrupts again. “Nicky, Nick, Mick. Oh!” He gasps in mock surprise. “Did you know that Mick Jagger’s drag costume in She’s The Boss cost thirty thousand pounds?” 

“No, I—I didn’t know that.” 

“Why not?” Andrew asks but doesn’t wait to hear the answer and continues, “That’s almost thirty seven thousand dollars.” The sound of someone hitting piano tiles comes from the radio and Andrew reaches out to change the station. One down, two up and one down again to the same piano music. “That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?” 

“I mean, I guess it is,” Nicky says as he takes a left turn. Reddins rises in front of them and his cousin slows the car. “Why do you know that?” 

“Why don’t you?” Andrew asks again and pushes his door open. He stops with one of his feet dangling in the car and leans back inside to turn off the radio. “Don’t listen to that, it’ll make you stupider than you already are.” 

Nicky sighs. 

“Stop that, you start to sound like Kevin. It’s terrible, really.” 

“You have fun, too.” 

“No, thank you!” Andrew slams the door shut and wags his finger at his cousin with amusement bubbling up deep inside of him, pushing through the surface. It makes his smile grow. “ _You_ have fun.”

He turns around when Nicky opens his mouth to respond. “Go now, I really don’t feel like talking to you anymore!”

Andrew pushes inside the building and signs in, humming a melody he can’t get out of his head even with his cloudy thoughts and rasps his knuckles against the wood of a door. 

“Knock knock!” he calls before he pushes down the door handle and steps inside Bee’s office.

Bee turns to him with two mugs already in her hands and smiles, and it settles Andrew in a weird way. It makes him stop feeling like he’s hovering an inch over the ground without touching it, pulls him down onto the floor and holds him there. 

It’s odd, to be held without actually being touched and unfamiliar to anything else Andrew knows — but it’s unfamiliar in a nice way. He doesn’t think he minds it.

“Hello Andrew.” 

“Now, now, Bee,” Andrew says and throws himself onto his seat on the sofa, taking great pleasure in watching the two pillows bouncing and toppling onto the ground. “That’s not how knock knock jokes work.” 

“I apologize,” Bee says lightly and sits down in her own chair facing him. She cradles her cup between her hand as if to warm them up, which is extremely ridiculous to Andrew since the sun is blazing outside. “Who’s there?” 

“It’s me, Andrew!” Andrew spreads his arms, his grin growing as he does. He lets them drop again after a second and deflates, his lips smacking together as if he’s a horse. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? You’re a smart one.”

Bee smiles again—no, her smile widens a little. She hasn’t stopped smiling since Andrew entered. “High praise coming from you.” 

Andrew hums in answer and takes a sip of his cocoa.

“I hope the week has been treating you well,” Bee says, the same thing she says at the start of every single one of their sessions. 

“Oh, it has!” Andrew puts down his cup. “I’m skipping Kevin and his boring obsession with Exy before I throw up on your carpet, but I did manage to find two new puzzle pieces.” 

“That’s great, Andrew.”

“It is, isn’t it?” 

“Have you managed to put them into the picture?” 

“Absolutely not!” Andrew says and raises his hands, his fingers spread apart. “They actually look like they’re pieces from a completely different puzzle.” 

Bee takes a sip of her tea. “Is there a second one in your possession?” 

It would be awful to sit here and pretend to talk about a literal puzzle instead of a person if Bee wasn’t smart enough to know what this conversation is about. Her question is justified, she knows about Andrew’s promises and their importance, she knows about him protecting Kevin, Aaron and Nicky, and she knows about Renee protecting the rest of the Foxes. 

So of course the addition of another person on the team would make her question which side to sort them to — even if it insinuates that Kevin of all people is like a puzzle to him when he’s more like a rubix cube with all sides painted in the same color. 

“No, Bee,” Andrew sighs and lets the back of his head lean against the sofa. He looks at the ceiling and isn’t surprised when he doesn’t find spiderwebs to focus on — Bee is a little bit of a clean freak, after all. “Starting two puzzles at the same time seems like an awful lot of work that I don’t feel like committing too.” 

“It’s good that you know your limits of what you can’t and can’t do.” 

“You’re so silly,” Andrew says. “I didn’t say I couldn’t.” 

“Of course not, but you set a limit for yourself and that is very important.” 

There are a lot of limits that Andrew set for himself, a lot of lines and rules that he follows and doesn’t cross — that he doesn’t allow anyone else to cross either. He doesn’t say that, though, because Bee is smart enough to know this after countless sessions (countless for her, maybe, not for him because he can remember all of them), and takes the addition of this one without a complaint. 

Andrew starts to hum the melody from the radio again without looking away from the ceiling.

“Has your weekend been satisfying as well?” 

“Has yours?” Andrew immediately asks back and then sits up straighter. He knows what she’s asking about and waves his hand. “That’s unnecessary to talk about and incredibly boring.” 

“Is that a no?” 

“Yes,” Andrew says. “There was no time to waste in Columbia when I had to keep an eye on our runner.” 

“Andrew,” Bee says and turns a stern look on him. “It would be good to talk to you about how certain activities that satisfy you, no matter in what way, are not a waste of time and never will be.” 

“Seen and forgotten.” Bee takes it as the non verbal ‘no’ it is and nods for him to go on. “We took Neil with us. I believe that you will have a field day with him.” 

“You do?”

“I don’t bet but if I would, I would bet Kevin on the fact that he is not going to like you,” Andrew says and brings a hand up to tap his fingers against his smiling mouth at the thought. Neil’s pained “do I have to?” at the mention of seeing someone, and talking to a shrink no less, gleefully returns to the front of his mind. 

Bee takes another sip of her tea before putting the cup on the table. “That does sound a lot like someone I know.” 

Andrew looks at Bee just then with his mouth still curled up, and she looks back and smiles. There is something uncurling inside of him, hot and sharp like his anger is but it’s softer around the edges and doesn’t threaten to boil him from the inside out. It’s gone in an instant when he blinks, washed away by his thoughts that are too loud to listen to. 

Ah, looking at someone and being looked at, and being _seen_ in return is as unsettling now as it is always, Andrew thinks. But it’s Bee — Bee who knows Andrew probably better than anyone else apart from himself and Bee has seen him from the beginning, from the first moment she had laid her eyes on him. Andrew doesn’t think he minds being seen if it’s Bee.  
She’s not talking about him, Andrew knows this with another slow blink. Bee is one of the very few people Andrew genuinely likes and will still like next year without his medication’s artificial happiness chained to him. And she knows this; Andrew doesn’t buy glass figurines because he’s a good person.

“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Andrew says cheerily, even if he does know. He doesn’t want to talk about Aaron, not today, likely never, and Bee takes it with a smile. The clock on the wall signals that his time is up and Andrew stands up. “Oh, would you look at the time, I actually need to go. I have a very important appointment and it’s walking out of this building. Right now!” 

“Andrew,” Bee calls after him when he reaches the door. He puts his hand behind his ear to signal that he’s listening. “I think there might be a possibility that the pieces do fit, but that it isn’t a different work. It might just be a big one.” 

Andrew can’t say he hasn’t thought about that, because he has, but hearing Bee say it is like turning on a fan and watching thick fog clearing. 

And while he knows that it’s figuratively speaking and the truth and that it makes sense, he throws his head back and laughs at the word ‘big’ — Neil is barely three inches taller than him. 

Then he leaves. 

That evening, Andrew leads the way out of their dorm room again, but he stops from walking to the stairway with a cigarette halfway to his lips when Kevin says his name. 

“Play with us,” Kevin says, demands, and sighs when Andrew just blinks. “You will do it one day. Just you wait.” 

“Will I?” Andrew asks and sticks the cigarette between his lips before lighting it, not caring about the smoke detectors in the whole building. It would be almost amusing to see everyone stumble out of their beds and into the fresh summer night because of one, small cigarette. 

He makes his way outside without waiting for an answer. It doesn’t matter to him anyway, Kevin is wrong and he will see that soon enough. Maybe he’ll even cry. 

Andrew unlocks his car and rolls down his window to blow out the smoke he inhales and he stubs his cigarette out again when Neil and Kevin come outside. He takes them to the stadium, waits for them to change, goes up into the stands as they practice on the court and then drives them back like the day before. 

*

They have two weeks of practice before the ERC makes an official announcement regarding the district change, and the day’s practice is long over and Andrew in his lot are in their dorm when Andrew’s phone rings. 

He takes his time to answer it; it’s evening and he missed his last dose to prepare for his long night. 

“David,” Andrew says after pressing the green button and holds the phone to his ear. It’s warm from being in his pocket during the warm day and Andrew pulls the bottom part away from his face. “What the fuck do you want?” 

That is enough to have Kevin looking up from one of his magazines in question. 

“Shut the fuck up, midget,” Wymack says through the phone and then sighs. “The ERC is about to make their announcement.”

“And?” 

“The segment will be on ESPN, you little shit.” Then he hangs up on Andrew, as if he wasn’t the one calling in the first place. 

Nicky sticks out his head from the kitchen where he’s unsuccessfully trying to cook—something. “Was that Wymack?” He lifts the spatula in his hand as if to scratch the top of his head but stops halfway through the motion. “What did he want?” 

Andrew doesn’t answer him and snatches the remote from where it’s laying on the ground to turn the TV on and change the channel to the correct one. 

They apparently missed seeing the news itself but are in time to see the reactions on the news show. The anchorman is gesturing wildly and talking a mile a minute while one of his guests shakes his head in a show of exaggerated disapproval and the other one keeps trying and failing to interrupt. 

Keys jiggle in the lock and the door to their suite opens, Aaron stepping inside a moment later. He pulls off his shoes and then looks up. “What’s that?” he asks but Andrew doesn’t feel like answering and Kevin is quiet behind him. “Oh, shit. They’ll rip us into shreds, won’t they?” 

“Wymack’s phone is going to be ringing off the hook for _weeks_ ,” Nicky comments from the kitchen. Pots and pans bang together and then there’s a hiss of, “ _oh fuck._ ” 

Kevin makes a sound as if someone is squeezing the life out of him and when Andrew looks over his shoulder, the color has drained from his face and makes his skin look pasty. His wide eyes are focused on the screen of the TV. 

Andrew pushes out a sigh and reaches out to flick Kevin on the forehead once, hard enough to snap him out of his trance. He raises an eyebrow when Kevin turns his wide eyed stare to him. 

“I need—I need,” Kevin says and then swallows loud enough that Nicky could probably hear it if he stopped slamming cabinets shut. “Eden’s,” he then says and Andrew just looks at him. “We’re going to Eden’s this friday, right?” 

Impossibly, that gets Andrew to push out more air in a longer sigh. He wishes he could disappear like carbon dioxide, sometimes, to escape from the idiocity a jock’s brain can produce. 

Going downtown, much less to Columbia wouldn’t be a smart idea. Andrew is confident in himself, but he’s not an idiot and he knows mobs aren’t something he can stop alone.

But Andrew doesn’t feel much like saying it and turns without answering Kevin to step into the kitchen. He ignores Nicky’s squak from not hearing him and grabs the bottle of whiskey Andrew had stolen from Wymack. 

“Drink,” he tells Kevin and then watches as the striker unscrews the bottle and starts downing it in a matter of seconds. He rips it out of his hands again when a third of it is gone. “I said to drink and not to make yourself sick.”

Kevin wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. Swallows loudly again. “Andrew, I—I can’t.” 

It’s an incredible sight, the star of the Exy world Kevin Day reduced to someone frightened — to someone too frightened to form a whole sentence. Oh, Andrew thinks as his patience snaps, how the mighty have fallen. 

Andrew burrows one of Kevin’s favorite gestures and snips in front of his face. “Now you listen to me, Kevin Day, and listen well because I’m not a fan of repeating myself over and over again,” he says and Kevin flinches once when he meets Andrew’s eyes. “I made you a promise to protect you from Riko Moriyama, and I intend to hold it.” 

No, Andrew isn’t one to break promises he makes, but he is used to being the one that keeps being left behind with the red band connecting him and the other person cut off and still clutched in his hand. 

“And you better go fuck yourself,” he adds, his fingers itching for a cigarette, “if you think I won’t.” 

Andrew waits for Kevin to nod at him before he steps back and hops onto his desk. He pulls out his cigarettes and ignores the pair of eyes identical to his own that he can feel burning into the side of his face like lasers. 

Fuck you, Andrew thinks to himself but stops there and lets it get repeated inside of his head, like a words shouted into an empty cave that echo back to you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kinda short-ish chapter, apologies for that, but please enjoy!

It’s before their warm ups that Wymack schedules them to go in pairs to their later appointments with Bee. He tries to set them up in a way that doesn’t leave holes in the scrimmage; Matt and Dan first, then Aaron and Kevin, Seth and Allison, Nicky and Andrew and Neil and Renee as the last to go. 

Andrew doesn’t try to hold in his amusement, to push it back until it evaporates, when Renee joins him on their usual laps around the court. 

It will be nothing short of a disaster, that is Andrew sure of; with Neil not even liking the other goalie. It’s not like Neil has actually said that he doesn’t, but Andrew has two eyes and they work very well. Reading Neil’s body language and watching him avoid Renee like the plague isn’t something he actively seeks out to doing, he’d rather stick his hand in open fire, but it is as hard to miss and a knee to the face. 

“Hey, hey, Renee,” Andrew says when they’re on their way to loop around the court for the second time. Exhaustion is long from calling for Andrew and instead energy is pumping through his body at the same speed his thoughts are bouncing around in his head. “If you had to bet on Neil liking or disliking Bee, you’d definitely bet for him getting along with her, right?” Andrew knows the answer already long before she nods her head. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.” 

“Of course;” Renee says, both an answer and a repeat of his words. And a proof of what he always thinks, more ironically than anything else. 

Renee the peacemaker. 

Andrew snorts and puts a finger underneath his armband, pulls it back and lets the cotton snap against his skin. He does it seven more times. _“I don’t bet”_ is what Andrew had said to Bee, and he doesn’t, really. This is honestly just to see how good he judged Neil’s character; which has been very good so far, not that he’d tell anyone.

“Oh, this will be a positive disaster. Rude that Wymack didn’t pair me with him, but I guess this isn’t too bad either. Make the impact more painful and all that,” he says and nods wisely along. “We’re on for this, aren’t we? I knew we would be!” Then he points at the clock high up attached to the wall. “Did you know that analog clocks—”

*

Andrew thinks about that exchange when he exits Bee’s office and swipes a handful of sweets out of the bowl by the reception desk, grinning at the woman working there as he does. He unwraps one to shove it into his mouth and takes great pleasure in throwing the wrapper in Nicky’s face.

Nicky turns an irritated look on him as they push outside and Andrew pretends not to notice. It makes his cousin's face look old, wrinkling it everywhere as if he’s an old man. 

“Didn’t you eat earlier?” Nicky asks when they reach the car, pressing on the key to unlock it. There is a squirrel running across the lawn and Andrew follows it with his eyes, oddly reminded of something as the little creature climbs up a tree with impressive speed. Nicky turns another look on him when Andrew gets into the passenger seat. “Isn’t that bad when we have practice? I’m pretty sure it is.” 

“Now, now, Nicky,” Andrew says and unwraps another piece of candy to shove it into his mouth. He throws it at Nicky’s shoulder to avoid blinding him. “I’m a growing boy, haven’t you heard?” 

“Andrew what?”

“What?” 

“I don’t.. think so?” 

“You don’t think what?” 

“You’re not a growing boy anymore.” 

Andrew raises an eyebrow at Nicky and looks at him as if he’s stupid. “Well, of course I’m not.” He takes a moment to chew on the candy in his mouth, drums his fingers on the window control, rolling it down and up again. “I’m nineteen, Nicky. Remember? I won’t grow anymore. Don’t get silly with me now.” 

Nicky grumbles something in the driver’s seat that Andrew chooses not to listen to and looks out of the window for the rest of the ride. 

When they return to the court, Wymack calls Renee and Neil off and Andrew snatches his keys from Nicky without making skin contact. He waits for them in the inner ring to hand them to Renee, and meets her eyes. 

“Thank you,” Renee says and smiles at him. It’s weird, because not a lot of people smile at Andrew; the most smiles he sees are from his own reflection in the mirror during the day and those aren’t natural. “I’ll take care of her.” 

“Kevin’s not allowed to drive your car but Renee is?” Neil asks. 

“It’s fun telling Kevin no,” Andrew says but doesn’t add that saying no to Kevin is incredibly satisfying because everyone else eats out of the palm of his hand and because Kevin isn’t used to not getting his way, to hearing a simple no to his demands. 

“Andrew only lets me and Renee drive,” Nicky says and Andrew watches the way his smile doesn’t reach his eyes as he watches Renee turn the keys over in her hand. 

Andrew knows that the upperclassmen think Andrew is an awful influence on someone as sweet-tempered as Renee. Nicky always has nice things to say about Renee, as do the upperclassmen, and they’re all scared Andrew is going to corrupt her. 

It’s foolish and incredibly amusing to Andrew at the same time. 

There’s a reason Andrew trusts Renee, the bone deep darkness in her eyes almost as familiar as the one he carries around with him everywhere, that makes up his person when he’s not on medication, when he’s himself, but others have always just seen what they want to see and Andrew doesn’t care enough to correct them. 

They’re equals, somehow, and not only when they spar but in all the other ways that matter. 

It’s funny, actually, to see the others think and believe that Renee is as sweet as she acts when she’s capable of delivering a very mean right hook.

“Not Aaron?” Neil asks. 

No, not Aaron, never Aaron. 

“Don’t keep Bee waiting,” Andrew says and an idea sparks to live inside of him at the sight of Kevin twirling his racquet around in his head. He heads into the court with one last shared look with Renee. 

Kevin turns to frown at the court walls when he sees Andrew. “Andrew?” 

“I’m Aaron,” Andrew says and manages to keep his mouth from turning into a grin. He sees his brother turn to him from his peripheral vision at the sound of his name and then Kevin turns to his brother and starts walking up to him.

How he didn’t notice that the bottom of Andrew’s armbands are poking out of his shirt and clearly visible, Andrew doesn’t know but he does know that this can all be traced back to Kevin being a stereotypical jock.

“Andrew,” Kevin says to Aaron and then Aaron turns a glare on the striker and it actually takes a few seconds for Kevin to understand who he’s talking to. He spins on his heel when he does realize and Andrew can almost see steam coming out of his ears as if he’s some kind of overheating robot. “You are not very funny.” 

If Kevin keeps lying like that, Andrew thinks as he grabs his racquet and idly passes it from one hand into the other, he is going to grow a longer nose and that would cause complications for everyone because it would make their star player look even worse than does currently. Which is already pretty bad.

“Hey!” Wymack yells from where he’s standing at the open court door, a clipboard between two of his fingers and his arms crossed over his chest. 

That simple yell is enough to get the others moving again, their shoes squeaking over the clean floor. But Andrew leans on his racquet with one arm and waves with his free arm. “Hello!” 

Wymack does as if he’s going to chuck the clipboard at him and Andrew moves to his place into the goal where he keeps leaning on his racquet and watches most of the balls pass him with a lot of interest. Some of them, though, he sends back into the general direction of the ankles of whoever tried their luck. It’s a complete coincidence that he manages to hit Kevin’s more than once, of course. 

Renee and Neil’s return from Reddins signals the midday break for lunch. Andrew leads his group up the stands away from the rest and he rips his food apart before devouring it, the shift in his medication not only causing him to be exhausted at midday but also to be extremely hungry. 

As soon as his hunger is stilled, he takes some crumbs and fires them at Kevin, who doesn’t notice, and lets them cover his dark hair like bread colored snowflakes. It’s disgusting, and pretty hard not to notice, but neither Nicky nor Aaron mention it — when Andrew glances over, they’re both occupied with their phones and he stands up. 

Renee finds him when Andrew is halfway through his cigarette. She leans against the wall beside him and looks up. After a second, Andrew does the same without tilting his head, glad for the shade the stadium is throwing over them in protection of the blazing inferno hanging on the sky. 

The leaves on the trees near the parking lot are deep green and full, white and yellow flowers in a wild pattern growing on the ground and open, tilted toward the sun. A slight, warm breeze hits Andrew’s skin where it’s exposed and he takes a breath, let’s the aroma of the flowers and the nicotine wash over him for a moment. 

“You won,” Renee says and Andrew opens his eyes again, and watches the sky. It’s bright and blue and without a single cloud to cover the sun and offer a break from the sun, and infuriatingly enough, Andrew gets reminded of another blue.

“Renee!” Andrew says and grins. “I didn’t notice you there for a second, don’t go around scaring me now.” Playing with his medication schedule or not, high or sober, Andrew would have noticed immediately and they both know it. “Oh, I won? I told you I would, didn’t I?” He snips with the hand not holding his cigarette. “Right, I did!” 

Renee smiles. “He hopes I didn’t lose too much.” She holds out a folded bill and Andrew takes it, shoves it under his left armband where it immediately clings to him like another layer of skin. “He asks very interesting questions.” 

“He does, doesn’t he?” The butt of his cigarette meets the warm asphalt and Andrew takes great pleasure in imagining it melting into a puddle. “It’s a real shame that no one is going to give him straight answers if he doesn’t do the same. I’m afraid that he’s talking enough to make a rope with his lies to place around us and pull it tightly around us if we’re not careful.” 

Neil is, all things considered and even if he had shown Andrew a wild card from his deck of lies, still a problem. A mild distraction that curls around Andrew like a warm string of sunshine. He makes Andrew’s attention split into a million pieces, like a glass meeting the ground, from where it is supposed to be, from where it has been anchored for so long that it has become too familiar to let go. 

The door next to them opens before Renee has the chance to finish and Kevin sticks his head, still covered with bread crumbs, outside to collect them for their following cardio that will wrap up the day for the Foxes. It’s good for Andrew, he’ll sweat out the rest of his medication before his next dosage, it will make the burden a little easier to bear, even if it still feels as if metal shackles are around his mind and trying to drag him down into the ground. 

“Make sure to shower,” Wymack calls after them when they’re done two hours later. He smacks the wooden part of his clipboard against the palm of his head and frowns. “Kevin, wash that shit out of your hair.” 

“What?” Kevin asks, his hand flying to his hair. He pulls out some of the bread crumbs, frowning and then glares at Andrew one second later. A muscle in his jaw jumps, the sign of him clenching his teeth, and Andrew really hopes they won’t start cracking. 

You never know with old people, do you? 

“What the fuck, Andrew?” 

“What?” Andrew asks and looks down at the crumbs Kevin is still holding. Then he pointly looks at his dark hair. “Oh, that’s disgusting, Kevin, really. Has no one taught you how to eat?” 

He keeps walking before Kevin has a chance to respond, and decides not to bring up grey hair today. Their poor star player would have a meltdown in the middle of the court, which would be oddly fitting. 

Playing with the schedule for his medication means that Andrew starts to feel the effects bordering on withdrawal as soon as he walks into the locker room, and he strolls into the bathroom to take a quick shower; it’s quicker than they usually hit. 

They make him feel heavy in all the ways the pills don’t, from his head to his feet and all the way down into his bones. A familiar darkness starts to rise, it clings to him with sharp claws and spreads from one place to his whole body in the same way a wildfire does — fast and almost unstoppable. 

But Andrew takes his next dosage under the watchful eye of Wymack before he plops down onto the sofa between his cousin and Kevin, who takes the pill bottle Andrew shoves at his chest with a little too much force before scooting away. 

Usually, it would take more than a soft cushion pillowing his body and his head when he leans back to make Andrew fall asleep — he would never fall asleep surrounded by his teammates in the middle of the longue sober, least of all without a wall grounding him into the here and now at his back — but as it is, with the medication already taking its course shortly after taking it, he’s out like a light before everyone has showered. 

Something warm and heavy touches his shoulder, shakes him for the barest second and Andrew is fully awake in an instant, panic pouring over him like heavy rain and his body in motion before his eyes are open. His fist makes contact with a warm chest and a wheeze reaches his ears as he opens his eyes. 

Nicky is sagged against the arm of the couch when Andrew turns. The warmth of where he touched Andrew is still there, it burns into his skin like a flaming tattoo and some anger comes alive inside of him before it’s chased away, carried like a piece of plastic in the ocean until it’s too far for the eye to see. 

Andrew blinks once, slowly, to get rid of the dream he had and that is alone to make him feel something similar to surprise. Because dreams are dangerous things, they leave you gasping for them like air when your head is under water, they’re dangerous in and something Andrew made himself unlearn. They do not matter, they’re not something Andrew wants to feel tempted to reach for, they’re swept under the rug and left alone with countless broken promises to keep up appearances. 

However, the picture of Kevin running around the Court with a toothbrush twice his size and wearing Aarons face is already in his memory where it will stay even if he doesn’t want it to.

“Nicky,” he says when his cousin gives another sick wheeze. “Are you dying?” 

“I’m good,” Nicky rasps and rubs at his chest. Andrew must’ve hit him in the diaphragm. He fails to feel guilty for it when his shoulder still itches uncomfortably.

“We’re done here,” Kevin says from his other side and Andrew snaps around to look at him, Nicky and his grabby hands unimportant for now. “Let’s go.” 

Andrew takes a moment to look around the room. Dan and Matt are in a deep conversation with Renee, who has a patient smile on her face. Allison and Seth are steadily ignoring each other, Neil looks bored out of his mind and Wymack has his arms crossed in front of his chest with his tattoo visible on his forearms. He catches sight of the clock and realizes that he must’ve slept through the conversation Wymack wanted to have. “I missed everything.” 

“Kevin can summarize it for you later,” Wymack says. “Clear out of here before I decide you’re all better off doing more laps.” 

The locker room empties in seconds, Andrew wagging his fingers at Wymack and then at Abby when she sticks her head out of her office to tell them goodbye. He doesn’t need Kevin to summarize anything they said while he was asleep and let his pills do their work, he has been aware of Kathy Ferdinand’s show since before Kevin chose to contact her.

( _Kevin is pacing up and down the length of Wymack’s living room, hands in his hair. If he weren’t only twenty one, Andrew thinks and takes a slow sip of whiskey from his cup that burns all the way down when he swallows it, he would look as if he’d have a midlife crisis._

_Which, Andrew supposes, isn’t that far off. Not that he can sympathize, because he can’t — not only because he’s sober but also because he truly doesn’t care about public appearances the way Kevin and Wymack both do._

_Wymack walks out of the kitchen, sighs when he sees Kevin still walking up and down after twenty painful minutes of silence (for him. for Andrew the silence is like balm to his sober mind) and takes the bottle filled with clear alcohol from the table to thrust it at Kevin. “Thirty seconds. Do your worst.”_

_And Kevin does. His Adam apple jumps up and down hard enough for Andrew to see from where he’s leaning against the frame of the door leading into the hall. A little of the whiskey spills out of the corner of his mouth like a line of drool._

_“Okay,” Kevin says when he comes up for air. “Okay.”_

_“Okay?” Andrew asks, his voice hoarse from disuse. He doesn’t talk a lot after his last dose for the day wears off, his tongue too heavy in his mouth and the need to speak carried away by the fog surrounding his brain during the day._

_“Okay,” Kevin says and holds his hand out in a wordless demand that doesn’t do more than spark a small flame of irritation deep inside of Andrew before it’s gone; being irritated, no matter how justified it might or might not be, is too exhausting for him. When Wymack places his phone in Kevin’s waiting palm, Kevin starts dialing. “I will do it.”_

_“Okay,” Wymack says and crosses his arms, flame tattoos glowing in contrast to his white shirt. Then he frowns. “When have you made your last official appearance?”_

_Andrew lets his eyes close halfway and watches as Wymack watches Kevin and Kevin watches Wymack back, clearly having no idea. “December fourth,” he says after a moment, because he feels heavy, as if his bones are made out of steel._

_Kevin nods as if to say ‘see?’ and he’s so very lucky that Andrew’s tired because if he weren’t, and if he were sky high, he’d put his hand over Kevin’s face and twist it into a circle. Not that that would make him any prettier._

_Wymack shrugs and just says, “okay” and that’s that._ )

Kevin apparently only keeps secrets from Andrew when it’s about the Ravens and that doesn’t sit right with him at all, not when their caption belongs to the family Andrew promised to protect Kevin from. 

It’s irritating, like a bee that keeps buzzing around Andrew’s head, and definitely not the reason for him hustling Kevin on the way to his car when Kevin keeps walking with the same speed old people in the mall have. That’s purely coincidental. 

*

Morning practice ends at eight the next morning, which leaves more than enough time for the Foxes to get to their first class on time. Andrew drives his lot back to the dorms and changes happily into fresh clothes, the clack layers covering him like a second, sun attracting skin. 

He grabs a coffee that Nicky has left on the counter in the kitchen and a handful of sweets that he stuffs into the pockets of his pants, all the while ignoring Kevin’s irritated look. It’s no secret that he isn’t a fan of all the sugar consumes but Andrew cannot remember asking or caring for his opinion, so he happily carries on. 

Andrew lets his eyes sweep over the athletes wearing their jerseys as a first-day celebration, an eyesore mix of orange and white, and he knows the entire team is expected to be in colors on game days, like tomorrow, but Andrew has never been one to follow that particular rule. Their jerseys are hideous. 

He makes it to his first class, Introduction to Criminal Law, in time and manages to get one of the desks in the last row, near the corner. It puts the place where the two walls are meeting at his back and gives him a good view of the whole room — not that he really needs it. He drums on the table with his fingers and with the toe of his left shoe on the floor. 

The teacher flies in soon enough and Andrew tunes him out, his thoughts already starting to bounce. It’s a joke, he thinks as he takes a sip of his coffee and the sweetness hits his taste buds. Andrew’s major being Criminal Justice is a joke, that is. He isn’t really interested in helping other people, but it’s interesting in a sinister and twisted way to learn about it. 

He’s pulling and pushing at his own limits with it, he knows this, and It’s as if he’s holding a lit match over a puddle of gasoline, waiting for it to either burn out or drop and set the whole place on fire and melt and destroy everything standing in its way. 

The seat next to Andrew’s stays empty the whole class and he’s glad but also amused. It is really no wonder that everyone would stay away from the twin with the armbands on. He’s the rumored psychopath, the bad one between him and Aaron, after all — which is a little rude, not that Andrew cares because he doesn’t. Wouldn’t want to set someone like him off, now would they? 

Andrew is free to return to the dorm after it, having scheduled the rest of his classes (English and Science) to Monday and Tuesday and early enough that he would have a field day waking up everyone else in their dorm. 

The sun hits Andrew directly in the face when he makes his way back outside after and it’s enough to send an unpleasant feeling up his nose. He doesn’t bother to shield his eyes as he pulls his pack of cigarettes out of his pack and lights one. 

He can see a familiar figure hurrying across the lawn, legs quickly moving and pushing to go even faster than they already and Andrew has the quickest thought that Neil would land pretty hard if he happened to trip on something, anything, right now. 

And then something sharp and warm curls under his skin as he keeps watching the striker, foreign and dazzling, like sparks dancing along his ribcage and it’s washed away by his erratic thoughts before he has time to pull and push at it to inspect it, gone but not lost by Andrew’s mind that never forgets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please enjoy reading!

The school’s excitement on Friday, on the first game day, is impossibly worse than on the day before but it all pales in contrast to the ever going firework inside of Andrew. Fiery sparks are whipping through his entire being, bursting through his veins like blood and giving the ever blank canvas of his mind a splash of bright color during the day until it all eventually mixes together to a dull, empty black as time passes.

And time will pass today, Andrew knows this as he sits on his desk with the window opened and a cigarette between his fingers, tendrils of grey smoke curling upwards until they get carried away by the warm summer breeze. He will let it pass, he will miss his dose half an hour before the game, he will ride the first stage of his withdrawal through the first half of the game. 

Andrew looks at the smoke as it disappears into nothing. He feels like that right now, as if his bones are hollow and weightless, as if a strong whiff of air could carry him away like a small piece of paper. 

It’s good that they will not be going to Columbia after the game, Andrew thinks as he takes a drag of his cigarette and pretends not to hear Nicky and Aaron cursing as they play some video game he has absolutely no interest in, because enduring withdrawal willingly twice in one night might even be too much for him. 

A knock sounds at the door and Andrew slips from the desk, curiosity suddenly burning inside of him like the nicotine from his cigarette before it turns into ash and falls off. 

“Andrew,” Dan Wilds says as he opens it and the sounds behind him quieten. 

“Well, hello there,” Andrew says and leans outside with his upper body, one hand wrapped around the door handle and the other one holding on to the wood of the doorframe. Predictably, Dan takes a step back and Andrew looks down the hall, into the direction of her room. “You are smart, aren’t you? It’s a little weird of you to miss your room by that much.” 

Dan doesn’t respond to that, but she crosses her arms and narrows her eyes. “I know where my room is, Andrew.” 

“Oh, is this a surprise visit?” Andrew puts one hand to his chest in mock surprise, lets his smile grow to show more of his teeth. He throws a look over his shoulder and Nicky and Aaron immediately resume their game. Kevin doesn’t even look up from his Exy magazine and Andrew suddenly wants to throw his cigarette at it and let it catch fire. He turns back to Dan. “It’s a tragedy, really, but we’re actually not taking any visitors right now. Or ever! Do not come back, goodbye!”

Dan sighs and puts one of her hands to her forehead, as if she has a headache. Which wouldn’t be very good considering that their game starts in less than two hours and Kevin will throw another one of his fits if she cannot play. 

“How are you holding up?”

Andrew takes a quick drag of his cigarette and blows the smoke in Dan’s face as he taps the fingers of his other hand against the doorframe. “How am I holding up what?” 

“How are you?”

“I’m Andrew.” 

“Andrew.” 

“Hello!” 

Dan throws her hands up in the air. “Just—be there on time.” 

“Aye, aye, captain.” Andrew salutes her with a grin and then slams the door in her face one second later because that conversation was incredibly useless to everyone involved and especially himself. 

He puts out his cigarette when he’s back at his desk, more ash than nicotine to inhale by now, lights it and doesn’t immediately take his thumb from his lighter. The flame on it is small, barely alive and still sending warmth all the way to Andrew’s skin and it blinds him when he looks at it, makes bright spots dance in his eyes when he looks away and he lets it die, puts his finger to the metal — hot but not hot enough to rival the flame burning inside of Andrew, not hot enough to burn him — and takes a drag. 

Andrew has smoked another two cigarettes by the time they leave the dormitory and he’s still flying high enough that he feels like he could touch the clouds and evaporate like water when they make it to the stadium. 

His smile only stops growing and growing and growing when they’re changed out and Wymack calls them into the the foyer to pass around the Beckenridge Jackals’ roster. One glance of him is enough to have it memorized, to have it stitched into his mind like a permanent tattoo. 

He passes the roaster to Kevin just in time to see Matt take a face. “Hey, Seth,” he says and looks at their other striker, who is currently glued to Allison’s side. “Looks like Gorilla’s back.” 

“Shit.” Seth curses and holds out his hand in a wordless demand for the paper. There’s another curse stumbling out of his lips when he has it clenched between his fingers. 

“At least they’re taking us seriously from the start,” Aaron says and gives a shrug. It’s a surprise, really, seeing as the Foxes aren’t a good team to begin with, and definitely no match to Beckenridge — not even with someone like Kevin Day on their team. 

Not that Andrew really cares about the outcome of the game anyway. 

“Easy for defense to say,” Allison says. 

“Gorilla?” Neil asks and Andrew blends out Nicky talking about Hawking. It doesn’t really interest Andrew, not when his only job tonight is clearing the goal and pulling the tail of his withdrawal as if it’s a sleeping dragon ready to rip his head off if woken up. 

Andrew’s mouth goes dry and he swallows once, twice against it. His skin is stretched tight over his muscles, almost as if it’s not his own and as if it had been ripped off completely and thrown into the dryer at a temperature too high when he wasn’t looking. It would be one step away from being uncomfortable, if not for the amusement still lodged tightly between his ribs like a knife pointed at his heart. 

“Are you done wasting my time now?” Wymack asks as Andrew blinks back into the conversation. He throws his arms around and it’s oddly reminding of a bird trying to lift himself from the ground and fly away. “Let’s get moving. We’re on home court for warm-up. We’re doing simple relay shots first, Andrew and Renee twice through each.” Then he turns to Andrew. “Andrew, keep them on our side. You hit a single practice shot onto the Jackals’ side of the court when they’re warming up and I won’t start you until second half.” 

It’s an empty threat coming from Wymack and Andrew knows it, the deal between them stretches and stretches but never far enough to snap in half. So Andrew just grins at him and lifts his hands in an innocent gesture that probably no one buys. 

Wymack nods once and keeps going. “Starters down the line: Seth, Kevin, Dan, Matt, Aaron, Andrew. I’ve got three subs each half, so you’ll all get a swap except the goalies.” He looks at Kevin, who is clenching his left hand into a fist. “Kevin, if you’re out if your hand so much as itches. Don’t be stupid tonight.” 

Telling Kevin not to be stupid about something Exy related is like telling a child not to put their hand on the hot stove. 

“It’s been eight months,” Kevin says and Andrew thinks, _child, meet stove_.

“Don’t risk your first game back,” Abby says. 

Kevin grimaces and opens his mouth as if to argue more, but Andrew cheerfully rams his elbow in his side to keep him quiet. That seems to be good enough for Wymack and Abby, who send the Foxes scrambling for their helmets and racquets before they line up at the door with Dan in the front and everyone following in playing position. 

With everyone being taller than Aaron and Andrew, who are at the back of the line, Andrew thinks it wouldn’t be too hard to have them all falling over each other like domino pieces. He takes a moment to be amused at that before Wymack leads them out to the benches. 

The screams of the audience are loud, muffled through his helmet, but not loud enough to drown out Andrew’s thoughts. It is like standing inside of a house made out of wood during a downpour, with one ear pressed to the wood to listen to the concert of the rain hitting the outer wall like drums, of the cracking when lightning flashes across the sky in a mimicry of a camera with the flash on, of the thunder clapping like an excited crowd. 

Andrew does like Wymack said, follows his innocent hand gesture from inside of the locker room, and keeps the balls during the twenty minutes of warm ups on their side of the court when he’s inside of the goal. He also refrains from sending them back at the striker’s ankles until they get shepherded off the court by the referees -- partly because he feels generous and partly because he feels cold sweat building at the back of his neck already. 

He doesn’t listen when the announcer calls the team’s roasters, too distracted with tipping his racquet onto the floor in a melody he had heard on the radio a few days ago, and only wags his fingers when someone hisses his name. 

“For the Beckenridge Jackals,” the announcer says after the Foxes and goes through the list of players slotted to play.

Wymack makes shooing motions at them as Dan comes back from the handshake and coin toss. “Get out there and make them sorry they showed up tonight. I want my subs at the wall cheering them on, but if you trip a referee I will cut you out.” Then he claps. “Let’s go.” 

Kevin is the first on the court and the crowd has a fit when at the sight of him; a bird rejected from his home and carried to a wild animals den with a broken wing, recovered and ready to spread his wings in another attempt to fly once again. 

Andrew follows everyone else into the court to make his way to the goal. He clenches his teeth at the sound, the cheering and excitement from the audience, still booming around the walls like a gummi ball thrown with too much force. 

The warning buzzer manages to be louder than Andrew’s thoughts. The buzzer to signal the game begins sounds at the same time that Andrew’s head clears more. 

He watches from his spot in the goal, watches as bodies crash into the wall and make it shudder under their weight. Watches as the subs pound on the wall in support. Watches as one of the Jackal strikers struggles with Aaron. 

Since Andrew isn’t allowed to antagonize the Foxes on game days, he starts to spin his racquet in a circle in a weak mockery of the Jackals’ efforts. Amusement sparks inside of him, but it’s short lived and a small wave compared to the tsunamis of laughter that would roll over him and leave Andrew’s lungs gasping for air if he had taken his latest dose. 

Gorilla and Seth wrestle for the ball further down the court and the ground shakes, vibrates in a weak imitation of an earthquake under the weight of his muscles, as he catches the ball and throws his arm back to throw it. 

Andrew’s medication is bleeding out of him at an incredible speed, it’s as if he’s one big, fatal wound and it’s what makes it easy for him to zero in on the ball as it gets send down all the way to his side of the court. It’s what makes it easy to realize that it’s spinning too much to make it near him. It’s what makes watching it hit the wall and bounce away a big task, like carrying tree stamps, instead of something simple like it would be for anyone else. 

One of the Jackal strikers gets around Matt and runs for it. It’s enough to make Andrew stop playing with his racquet and ready himself. The striker takes a fast shot on goal, the ball whips through the air with a small whistle, but it isn’t fast enough for Andrew, not when he’s half sober and his thoughts are clear like the air after a storm. It takes nothing for him to swings his racquet and connect with the ball with enough force to send vibrations through the stick, the ball flying right back down the middle of the court when he hits it.

One of the Jackal dealers tries to catch it, but it’s a loose attempt since it goes faster than he apparently anticipated and it bounces right back out of the net of his racquet, making it an easy move for Dan to steal it. 

Andrew keeps watching, his muscles screaming from the simple movement as if he just performed a two hour workout. The dealer bowls over Dan and Dan slams into him hard enough to send them both sprawling right after, their shoes squeaking over the floor with the speed at with they fall. 

Aaron ducks under the arm of the striker on his side and spins to get the ball, and keeps spinning to send it back to Andrew. He loses his balance before the ball makes it to Andrew and stumbles. Andrew doesn’t spare him more than a glance before hitting the ball with an underhand swing that clears it out of the home court. It bounces off the ceiling and falls back into the fray. 

It’s almost funny, Andrew thinks as he swallows back the sour taste climbing up the back of his throat, to watch this team play after seeing them fight each other on the court in practice every day. Wymack should count himself lucky that their opponents make more annoyance come to life inside of Andrew than the Foxes do, than Kevin Day and his sky high ego does. 

When the time shows twelve minutes into the game, a Jackal striker bulls over Aaron hard enough to send him to the floor and it makes something inside of Andrew flash white hot. It’s hot enough for all of a second before his withdrawal sends a wave of nausea through him that he snaps the ball right back at him with enough accuracy to make it bounce off his helmet when he tries his luck. 

He deflects the next shot they aim at the goal as well, but it’s impossible for him to clear the ball with the Jackals crowded around the goal like a horde of wild sharks smelling blood and then Gorilla knocks aside two Foxes like someone else would do with flies buzzing around their head. Matt throws himself into Gorilla and takes him out like a bowling ball knocking down pins, and Andrew loses sight of the ball for a split second until it’s too late. 

It whips through the air and Andrew’s legs refuse to move from where he’s standing, his muscles straining as if there’s cement poured over them when the goal flares up red behind him.

The sound of the buzzer vibrates in his head, makes his bones shake like the vibrations in the air and Andrew clenches his teeth. Swallows against another wave of nausea and keeps his eyes on the strikers as Seth and Kevin start to bitch at each other. And then Seth throws a punch at Kevin and Andrew swallows a second time, the anger that sizzles inside of him erased as fast as it appears, ripped apart and swallowed by the darkness threatening to creep into his vision. 

Kevin’s a big boy, he can handle himself -- on the exy court, that is. 

Dan goes between them and the anger inside of Andrew gets snuffed out like a match does when you move your hand back and forth, small tendrils of smoke reaching into the air. 

The game continues when the strikers have spread out on half-court to take their sports again and Andrew takes a deep breath that threatens to rip him open on the way down. Kevin manages to score, the excited students on the stands scream a song loud enough to drown out the booing from the Jackal fans. 

For Andrew, it all tunes together as another wave of nausea hits him, almost throws him to the ground like a tsunami would with a building. It’s like looking through a window with the view to everything on the other side of the glass almost unhindered, now that the fog of his medication is clearing, but with specks of water running down the crystalline solid and transforming everything into blurry shapes he has no interest in focusing on to make them sharp.

Then Gorilla crushes Seth up against the wall, about twenty minutes into the game if the clock ticking above the court is correct. He tries to stand up, scrabbles ineffectually at the wall and crumples back to the ground, signals the referees to call him out. 

A ball comes flying in his direction and Andrew catches it easily in his left hand, wraps his fingers around it and keeps it save like he’s supposed to. Seth gets half carried off the court by Dan and Allison takes him from her at the door. 

“Going in for Seth Gordon,” the announcer calls out their swap, “is freshman Neil Josten, number ten, of Millport, Arizona.” 

And Andrew’s attention snaps to him when the court doors slam shut. Neil steps onto the court and Andrew is immediately reminded of a baby deer putting its feet on ice, its legs flailing around and slipping in every direction in a struggle to balance itself to avoid falling and hitting the hard ground below. 

The corners of Andrew’s lips start to curl up and he lets them, he lets the medication still in his system pull his mouth into a smile a number too big for his face. Now, he thinks as he slams his racquet against the goal in an attempt to gain Neil’s attention, now he’s ready to pay attention. 

Andrew blinks as the buzzer overhead sounds when everyone is settled and still. He lifts the ball in his gloved hand and calls out, “Hey, Pinocchio,” because that’s what Neil is, who Neil resembles with the lies and lies that he tells, that pile up around him like a kingdom of deceit he rules. “Time to run,” he says with cheer, half fake due to his half sober state and half not because running is something Neil does awfully good, “This one’s for you.” 

He bounces the ball off the ground and imagines Riko Moriyama’s ugly face when he swings with everything he has. Neil is already flying down the court when Andrew looks back up. And he’s fast, vanishing past the backliners and strikers that only now start to move and faster than Kevin’s mark that cuts the court in a failed attempt to cut him off. 

Neil jumps up, high as if he has wings growing out of his shoulder blades, and catches the ball after it bounces off the far wall. And then he bounces away from Kevin’s mark as if he’s some kind of fucking gummi ball, swings his racquet and passes the ball to Dan before his mark collides with him and throws him to the ground. 

Something in Andrew sparks alive, sharp and hot and right over his ribcage and entirely wrong, and then it’s gone again before Andrew has the chance to catch it and crush it into dust. But it makes him wrap his fingers tighter around the hard stick of his racquet.

Near the opposing goal, Kevin catches the ball from Dan and makes it around Gorilla to throw the ball further up the court — likely to buy the strikers breathing room. Right after the ball left his net, Gorilla smacks Kevin’s racquet out of his hands and Andrew twists his racquet a little stronger, imagines it’s Gorilla’s throat that he squeezes. Another moment later, Kevin gets the ball again and shoots, and then immediately gets crushed by Gorilla. 

Andrew clenches his teeth, hard enough that he’s almost surprised that they don’t start falling out of his mouth one by one and then, somehow, the goal flares up red behind him again. He takes another breath, swallows down his nausea. 

“Leverette!” the dealer yells a moment later as the Jackal’s backliner shoves against Neil chest-to-chest before Neil presses one finger against her shoulder. “Back off!” 

The Jackals serve and Kevin gains possession of the ball — only to lose it again as he drops his racquet as soon as Gorilla’s makes contact with it. It’s not hard to guess why Kevin keeps loosing his hold on it, why he allows it to keep dropping onto the floor. 

It’s the bone deep fear Andrew had seen in his eyes when he came to Palmetto, the bone deep fear that creeps into his eyes every time Kevin talks about the Ravens and Riko Moriyama, the bone deep fear of another injury that will force him to leave his dream, his life, the Exy court.

The ball makes it back to Andrew when Matt steals it from his striker and passes it to Aaron, who sends it to Andrew. Andrew waits a split second before he hits the ball to make it rebound off the wall, waits until his brother gets ahead of his striker mark. 

“Neil!” Aaron yells and it makes something, too faint to be the amusement he usually feels bubbling to the surface like the air in sparkling water, inside him tune in. Oh, how this sport brings people together that usually don’t like each other will never fail to amaze Andrew. 

Neil is tearing down the court as if he’s Speedy Gonzales and Andrew almost expects to see a cloud of dust whirling into the air under his feet. He manages to catch it after Leverett rams into him, takes two steps back, shoulder-slams her with more force than should be possible considering his small stature and then bolts with the ball to throw it to Kevin. 

Kevin catches it and then he drops his racquet, and Andrew wishes he could say that he lost count but he didn’t. Gorilla runs after the ball, the ground shaking with his steps and Kevin turns to Matt to yell, “Get him off of me!” 

And Matt does; Andrew knows Kevin knows he would — Matt lives and breathes into his little group, into the little family he has for himself. He drops his striker like a hot potato and goes after Gorilla, tosses his racquet aside and swings, and while Andrew isn’t close enough to clearly see it he guesses that Matt’s knowledge of boxing is coming in handy. It does, when his fist makes contact under Gorilla’s chest armor.

Then Gorilla starts to come for Matt, shoving his teammates out of the way like useless hurdles as he tries to catch him. 

But then Matt passes the goal and Andrew steps into Gorilla’s path with the sudden urge to stick out one of his legs to make the other player trip and fall. He doesn’t, but he would definitely have done it if he was happily drugged up. 

“Move it,” Gorilla demands, voice deep and strained. He jerks one hand at him in another demand, albeit wordless, to move but Andrew doesn’t, his bones heavy enough that his feet are glued to the floor, and then Gorilla says, “You’re fucking crazy.”

Weird, Andrew thinks humorless as a small droplet of cold sweat makes its way down the back of his neck, if everyone keeps saying it like it’s a fact and the truth, he might start believing it as well. 

The referees arrive at the goal before things have a chance to escalate even more and Matt gets handed a yellow card that he accepts without argument. He flashes Kevin a thumbs-up before he jogs off the court to let Nicky on.

And then Kevin is in front of Andrew, his fist held to his chest and it’s so, so similar to the gesture of him cradling his broken hand that Andrew doesn’t do more than point at his left hand before Kevin throws it out. He undoes the straps and peels off his outer glove, hooks it under his own arm to take off Kevin’s arm guard. Something inside him burns softly with the need to see Kevin’s hand, like a pile of leaves that you set on fire with the help of a magnifying glass and the sun, and it smolders and sends dark smoke everywhere, burns in his lungs like acid. 

He manages to unhook the loop from Kevin’s middle finger so that he can slide the black cloth to Kevin’s wrist. Andrew takes a look and blinks, compares what he sees with his memory (the surgery scars are still there, the skin around it slightly reddened from the strain of having his racquet knocked away multiple times, but it looks the same). Kevin flexes his fingers slowly, as if his hand is hurting, and his scars stretch over his skin with the movement. 

“Kevin!” 

“Do you feel like pushing fate today?” Andrew doesn’t believe in fate, he doesn’t think he ever did, and he gathers enough sarcasm as he can and sprinkles it over his words, lets them drip with it like a damaged faucet.

Kevin understands the question for what it is, a _“can you still play? will your hand survive it if you do?”_ , and shakes his head before taking the glove and armor Andrew pushes at him before making his way off the court. 

The damage to Kevin’s hand, even if there’s really no damage at all, to someone under his protection, is enough to have Andrew zero his attention onto the player replacing Gorilla and carrying out his foul shot, and it’s enough to have him slam the ball all the way down the far court wall.

With Kevin on the bench and out of his sight, Andrew’s eyes follow Neil as he runs down the court. It’s odd, Andrew thinks as Neil snaggs the ball and zig zags around the court, how his attention still snaps to their runaway when he’s coming down from his meds, when everything is dull and grey and heavy, when he is dull and grey and heavy, instead of a burst of colors and light like a feather. 

He isn’t a danger anymore, for now that is, and he shouldn’t be interesting but he is Andrew should lock the door and throw the key away, or maybe pulverize it and get rid what is left of it. But he doesn’t, he leaves the door open a crack with something like curiosity making itself a home directly under his skin. 

It isn’t real, he tells himself as another wave of nausea rolls over him and has him swallow audibly and hard. It’s like the artificial happiness lifting him off his feet and has him flying sky high every single day, it will vanish like a cloud of smoke when you wave your hand, like a balloon filled with helium that rises to the sky until it’s out of sight and never to be seen again. 

It isn’t real, he tells himself again after he lies down on the home bench during the second half of the game, exhaustion breaking over him like a storm. He feels like a faucet when he takes his court mandated medication, his energy like water running and running without someone in sight to lift their hand, to press down and shut off the endless and expensive waste of water. 

Andrew can’t wait until he comes off his medication for good, until he comes down from where he’s floating with the clouds, until he can shut off the water for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please enjoy reading!

When they make it back to their dorm around ten after their loss, Andrew’s mind is still cloudy, buzzing with the effects of the pill he took after the first half of the game and his lips are still pulled up into the smile that never seems to want to leave — not that it bothers him a lot in his current state. 

Aaron and Nicky immediately wander off to dump their bags in the bedroom and come back out to claim the sofa to play their video game and Andrew sits down on his desk after cracking the window open. He hums the melody that doesn’t leave his mind for even a second, that bounces around in his head like a gummi ball in an empty room. The air from outside pours inside like water into a ship with a hole and Andrew lets the clear air wash over him, lets it slip under his clothes and brush his skin where it buries itself and stays. 

When Kevin looks like he’s about to walk into the bedroom and drop down to sleep, Andrew makes a buzzing noise and lights a cigarette. Takes a drag, lets the acrid smoke creep into his lungs and blows it into Kevin’s face. Kevin immediately starts coughing, tongue sticking out like when kids cough and all that, and then glares, which amuses Andrew greatly. 

There are roughly three hours between now and one in the morning of the following day, and Andrew knows that if Kevin falls asleep now, he will be as good as dead and not capable of waking up when they need him to. Not that he is against turning Kevin’s mattress upside down and letting him flop to the ground like a fish on land, but he’d rather not deal with a huffing and puffing Kevin that early in the morning. 

Especially considering that Kevin turns red like a cartoon character sometimes and that he doesn’t paint a picture that is any prettier than he is usually — which isn’t at all. 

Kevin sends Andrew another irritated look and goes into the bedroom and Andrew considers lighting his mattress on fire (he won’t be able to sleep on it then) for a second before Kevin comes back and pulls on his wrist braces. 

“You,” Andrew says and his lips pull up into a smile that nearly splits his face in half when he points at Kevin with his burning cigarette, “are a fucking idiot.” 

“Neil will go on the show with me later,” Kevin says as he begins walking up and down again and rudely ignores Andrew’s comment. “It will be good for him.” 

With his medication slowly making its way out of his system like every evening, Andrew doesn’t care enough to partake in a conversation, but the way Kevin says it tells him everything he needs to know without asking. It tells him that Neil most likely isn’t aware of this, it tells him that Kevin is once again saying someone else will do something like it’s a fact, like it’s already decided and something buried deep inside of him shows its ugly head until amusement pushes it back down. 

He remembers standing in Wymack’s apartment less than seven days ago, looking at Neil without the constant firework of colors exploding in his mind and making everything more than it is — looking at Neil’s eyes, blue brighter than the sky on a summer afternoon hidden behind colored contacts, and at the darkness Andrew recognized like the one running through his veins like blood. He hears Neil talk, he hears him say _“--but I can’t risk Riko’s family recognizing me”_ as if he’s saying it right now. 

Dragging Neil from the shadow he very clearly stands in, that covers him from head to toe like his rattly clothes and false eye color, and pulling him onto the stage on live television that the Moriyama’s will probably watch and eat up like hungry sharks, might pop the bubble Neil is trying to hide in and Andrew is awfully amused at the thought of seeing Neil struggle, of seeing him play the part of the rabbit he very clearly is. 

Though the fact that Kevin didn’t have it in him to ask, the fact that Kevin expects everyone to eat out of his palm, awakens the sudden urge in Andrew to stick out his foot and trip him, to make Kevin fall onto the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut. 

He doesn’t, thought, and keeps watching as Kevin walks up and down as the time goes by, as Friday night turns into early Saturday morning. Andrew eventually stops his humming, he gets quieter the more time passes, the more his medicine bleeds out of him, the heavier his eyelids get, and begins flicking the butts of his cigarettes at Kevin’s head when the striker sits down on the couch and looks like he’s about to fall asleep. 

Someone pounds on their suite door and Kevin snaps awake from where he’d been closing his eyes a second before and jumps up. Andrew moves a tick slower, his muscles burning from their game and his bones sitting heavy in his body, and follows Kevin, Nicky and Aaron out of the room and into the hallway where everyone else, plus Wymack, is already waiting. 

Wymack takes a look at them and points at Kevin. “How the hell did they wake you up?” 

“They didn’t let me sleep.” Andrew sees Kevin turn and glare at him out of the corner of his eye (probably for all the cigarettes that are still laying on the carpeted floor in front of the sofa) but he really doesn’t care enough to look back. 

“Smart,” Wymack says and then waves a hand into the direction of the stairs. “Let’s go.” 

They make it outside and Andrew spares a second to look up at the sky, free of clouds and decorated by too many starts for one human to count, before he directs his gaze to their team bus. It’s orange with paw prints against a white background and utterly nauseating, in Andrew’s opinion — not that anyone asks him for it. 

It’s usually locked away in a gated compound to prevent vandalism and Andrew completely understands why. 

The inside of the bus differentiates from others; insead of two rows, this one only has one and the cushions are big enough that they can comfortably seat two athletes or let one curl up. 

Andrew leads his lot down the rows and into the back, to their usual seats. He takes the seat all the way in the back, lets himself sink into the cushion and lasts until the engine roars to life, until the dorm disappears out of his view, before he loses the battle against his body -- tired after a wave of withdrawal, the game and his medication losing its touch — and lets his heavy eyelids slam shut. 

Something hitting him in the center of the chest has Andrew snapping awake in an instant, fist flying and making contact with the seat cushion next to him before his eyes are open a second later and take in Wymack standing a few feet away with his hand hovering in the air. 

“Give it back.” 

It being his wallet that comfortably sits on the seat next to him, Andrew supposes. It’s smart of Wymack, he thinks as he moves and the leather creaks beneath him, to use his wallet instead of his own body to wake Andrew up. He gives the wallet back to Wymack and then watches as he stuffs his into his pocket and moves to the row Kevin is sleeping in where he plants his shoe against Kevin’s body. 

Andrew is reminded of shoving Kevin out of his car and knows that if it wasn’t ass o’clock, he’d he chuckling at the memory. 

“Up,” Wymack says and then repeats it over and over, gets louder with every time he says it until he’s almost shouting. “Get your ass up and moving!” 

Kevin tries to shove Wymack away with his hand, but then Wymack grabs his elbow and manages to haul Kevin out of his chair and into the isle where he looks like he’s about to fall over before Wymack drops him back onto his cushion. There’s not a single drop of amusement inside of him, but Andrew can still appreciate the way bounces against his window before he says, “I hate you.” 

“Breaking news,” Wymack says and sounds like he doesn’t care one bit, “I don’t care. This was your brilliant idea.” 

Which, Andrew knows, is the truth. He leans to his left and against the window, the glas cooled from the nightair like needles on his warm skin. There’s a parking lot outside, street lamps throw an orange and almost eerie glow on how empty it appears. “Are we here?” 

“Close enough,” Wymack says. “You know what to do.” 

Andrew does, but he doesn’t say as much. He lets the cool from the window leech onto his skin, imagines how it slips inside of his body and into his veins, how it crystallizes him from the inside out and makes him look as frozen and empty as he feels. 

Kevin starts doing laps up and down the length of the bus and Andrew blends him out for a second, focuses on his muscles that burn with every little movement, on his bones that sit in his body and feel so much heavier in comparison to the weightless feeling he has during the day. 

And then, suddenly, a wave of nausea rolls over him like a wave, it rips him down like water does to a small child and he swallows against it and rasps out, “Kevin.” 

Kevin is only halfway through his lap but he immediately turns at the sound of his name and comes back, Wymack moving out of his way as he passes him. He dugs a small, brown bottle out of his pocket and Andrew grabs it tightly to avoid dropping it due to the slight film of sweat building on his palms. He and Wymack both watch as Andrew rips it open, tips one pill into his hand and swallows it dry before he puts the bottle into his own pocket. 

Andrew avoids having them on his own person like other people would avoid a sick person, but it wouldn’t be very beneficial for any of them if he got sick in the middle of a tv studio because he can’t take his medicine in time. 

Kevin looks like he’s about to say something that Andrew knows will only go on his nerves, but then Abby and Renee walk into the bus and their hands are full of bags of food and trays of drinks. Andrew rips a croissant apart in the fifteen minutes it takes for them to arrive and has great pleasure in imagining Kevin’s head on it before he shoves it into his mouth and chews on it to satisfy his twisting stomach. 

When they arrive at the two-story building that houses Kathy Ferdinand’s show, there are crumbs all over Andrew’s shirt and he plucks them off to snip them at Kevin’s head, watches as they decorate his dark hair like snow flakes and stay as if glued to it. Wymack parks by the security gate and gets out to talk to the guard, gets IDs and paperwork checked and then comes back with a parking tag and a pile of guest badges. 

The gate squeals as it opens, loud and high, and then Wymack drives them to the employee parking lot where they get off. Andrew pushes his shoe under Kevin's to make him stumble into Aaron and then looks away with big eyes when Kevin turns around. They pass Wymack, who is standing to one side of the door and handing out badges and Abby locks the bus door behind them. 

The sun is slowly starting to rise on the horizon, the golden rays stretch over the soft blue of the sky like a bright flame, becoming brighter with every second as they start to walk into the direction of the studio. Gold mixes with faint amber and rose, with red and purple, in a radiant mix of colors similar to the storm inside of Andrew’s own mind. 

They’re halfway to the building when the doors open and a woman, Kathy Ferdinand in the flesh, steps out, looking more awake than even Wymack does. She throws her hand out when she’s near them. “Kevin, it’s been so long,” she says, as if her and Kevin are longtime friends. “I’m glad you could make it today.” 

“It’s good to see you again,” Kevin says, and then he actually smiles as he takes her hand and Andrew is glad that he took his medication already because the sight of it would’ve made him keel over and empty his stomach on the spot. 

Dan feigns swooning into Matt’s arms in a show of mockery and Andrew understands it. Kevin’s smile is usually a brittle and bitter and ugly thing, not comparable to the pictures all over the internet of him standing next to Riko Moriyama with a condescending smile on his face or now, with his public face pulled over his expression like a mask. 

Kathy turns to them and the morning sunshine glints off her perfect, money bought teeth. Maybe, Andrew thinks, they’d be strong enough to blind someone in the right light. “You were amazing last night. Kevin, you have the magic tough,” she says and glances at Kevin. “This team has been doing so much better since you transferred.” 

Andrew tunes out whatever Kevin says in answer and tilts his head. He guesses she’s not wrong. The foxes are a deck of cards to the public, something a gambler knows like the back of their hand and could memorize in their sleep, with Kevin as the ace and Andrew the wildcard. Neil, however, Andrew thinks as he turns to him, is another card all together; one that doesn’t really fit in, one that appears out of nowhere in the deck as if shoved between the others in a mimicry of a magic trick. One that doesn’t make sense no matter how Andrew looks at it, no matter how many times he twists and turns it, but still manages to make sense to everyone else looking from a distance. 

Confusing, and awfully interesting. A bad idea, maybe. 

“Brilliant,” Kathy says to whatever nonsense Kevin said and turns to Neil with a look in her eyes that screams of hunger. “Neil Josten,” she says and Neil frowns at her. “Good morning. I suppose you’ve already heard the food news? As of eleven o’clock last night, your name is the third-highest search string for NCAA Exy strikers. That puts you right after Riko and Kevin. How does it feel.” 

Neil makes a face as if he just bit into something sour and it’s terribly amusing, really. Though not surprising, considering the staying under the radar and all that. “I didn’t need to know that.”

“Did you talk to him?” Kathy asks Kevin. 

“I didn’t think we needed to talk about it,” Kevin says and Andrew is suddenly glad he didn’t tell Kevin about the bread crumbs sticking to his head. 

“About what?” Neil asks. 

“I want you on my show this morning,” Kathy says.

Neil just stares at her for a second, blank faced and as if he’s waiting for the punchline that Andrew knows won’t come. He also knows that sooner rather than later, Kevin’s ego will come and bite him in the ass. 

“Everyone wants to know who you are,” Kathy says and spreads her hand in a grand gesture, almost knocking Nicky in the face when she does. “You’re a mystery addition to the Fox line,” she says, which isn’t too far off, “a rookie out of a tiny town in Arizona—” it isn’t that tiny, really, “Coach Hernandez says you picked Exy up in a year by reading a guidebook and showing up to practice.” Neil didn’t say that he’d been playing Exy when he met Kevin and Riko a few years ago, but it sounds more likely than him learning from a book. “Kevin says you’re going to sign with the US Court after graduation. Such ambitions and dreams from such a humble beginning, don’t you think?” She doesn’t wait for his answer. “It’s time for your debut.” 

“No,” Neil says and Kathy stares at him with a dumb look on her face. That should be where the line is drawn, a verbal no should be as clear as a punch to the face — even for someone like Kathy. “No. I’m not interested.” 

Kathy’s smile twitches on her face, in annoyance Andrew guesses and she reaches out as if to pat his shoulder but Neil backs up a step. Andrew watches that reaction, lets it burn into his mind to pull out and study later. 

“Don’t be shy,” Kathy tells Neil and Andrew turns his head up, drowns out her annoyingly high voice to watch the way colors get painted over the sky by the still rising sun. There are a few clouds above that make their way across the horizon slowly, they’re set alight by the colors the sun throws on the canvas that is the sky, vivid pink and purple transforming them into floating cotton candy. 

Andrew blinks back into the conversation when Neil says something. It’s in a language he doesn’t understand, probably French by the way Kevin gives a full body twitch, but Andrew doesn’t need to speak the language to hear the venomous tone Neil is using. Andrew keeps his eyes on Neil as Kevin answers, looks at the way his dark hair shines in the sun and narrows his eyes at the warmth blooming inside of his chest. 

They don’t talk for more than a few seconds, but whatever Kevin says is enough to leave Neil looking like he got punched in the chest and if Andrew wasn’t so amused by it and by guessing what could have made him look like this, he’d maybe consider asking. 

“It’s settled,” Kevin says to Kathy and Kathy’s blinding smile returns before she leads them into the building. Andrew keeps watching Kevin as he pushes Neil after Kathy, he keeps watching as Neil swats at Kevin’s hand and there isn’t a single spark of anger inside of him when Matt reaches over Neil to push Kevin back. 

Their back and forth does, however, put Neil in Andrew’s line of sight. Andrew considers him for a moment, tips his head to the side as he does so, and looks at Neil’s dark eyes, at the wild look in them. It’s enough to make Andrew’s smile grow. “You’re so stupid.” 

He doesn’t say that he means going onto the show and stepping into the light and out from the shadows Neil is very clearly trying to hide in, but he doesn’t have to. Neil looks back at Andrew for a second, and then turns around and starts after Kathy without saying anything in return. 

The Foxes are led to the left when they make it into the building, and Andrew pretends to listen when a boring looking man starts reading a list of rules regarding appropriate studio behavior that seems even more boring. Neil and Kevin get led down a hall and around a corner, and then they’re out of Andrew’s sight. 

They all end up sitting in the first row, near the camera men, and Andrew is between Renee and Wymack which isn’t too stupid, he guesses. There aren’t any seats in front of them that Andrew can kick to make this whole thing less boring, but there is a thick cable on the ground that he starts tapping with his feet. Not hard enough to damage it, of course. 

“Remember,” Wymack says from his left and Andrew keeps tapping, almost trips the person handling the camera purely on accident, “to behave yourself.” 

Andrew lifts his hands in a innocent gesture that Wymack doesn’t buy from the look he sends him. “Now, now, Coach. Have you ever known me not to be on my best behavior?” 

It’s a rhetorical question, more than anything else, and Andrew doesn’t expect an answer, not does he need one, but Wymack still opens his mouth only to be cut off by the show’s opening music and applause when Kathy walks onto the stage. She stops in the center to bow and then waves at the crowd. 

Andrew wonders what would happen if he showed her his middle finger. He doesn’t, but it’s a very close thing. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, good morning!” Kathy says. “I know it’s a little early for most of us to be awake on a Saturday morning, but we’ve got a fantastic show in store for you today. Our musical guests are the four extremely talented men from the up-and-coming Hobgoblin’s Thunder.” She pauses as the people around Andrew cheer. Andrew has no idea who those men are, nor does he care, really. “But let’s start the morning with last night and the start of the NCAA Exy season!” 

The people cheer louder and Matt lets out a whistle from somewhere on Andrew’s right. Kathy begins pacing the front of her stage. “How many of you had a chance to go to a game last night?” She asks and a few people throw their hands up.

Andrew takes great pleasure in throwing his own arms up and Wymack mutters a quiet curse next to him. “I don’t think that that’s very family friendly, Coach.” 

“Oh, wow! How many, like me, watched the game from the comfort of your own home?” Kathy raises her own hand and pushes out a laugh that sounds fake and makes Andrew want to trip her instead of the cameraman. “Some of you are probably already taking bets on the season’s rankings and spring contenders. Right? This year has potential to be the greatest college season we’ve seen yet. Think of all the changes, all the amazing possibilities—” 

Andrew would much rather go bungee jumping than do that.

“—We’re going to talk a little about that today, but to do that, I’m going to need a couple special guests.” 

And that—that is a weird choice of words, Andrew thinks, considering the fact that it’s Kevin and Neil. The words make it sound like there are more to come and he really doesn’t think, and hope, that Kevin managed to clone himself or spontaneously multiply in the time he spent in the changing room. 

There is a chance that it’s simply a weird choice of word on Kathy’s side, but Andrew has dealt with too much standing up with his eyes on Kevin’s back and on the people around himself to just take them without a grain of salt. 

That is perhaps one of the worst things that could happen to Andrew. 

“It’s been a year since you saw him here last and nearly nine months—” the people around Andrew start cheering before Kathy even manages to say everything, and Andrew takes a moment to sigh because of course he’d end up in a sea of Exy obsessed people. “—since his last public appearance. I present to you our first guest of the day: former starting striker for the US Court, the Baltimore Wildcats, and the Edgar Allan Ravens, currently starting striker for the Palmetto State University Foxes, Kevin Day!” 

The entire audience minus Andrew is cheering by the time Kevin steps onto the stage, and Andrew takes a second to look for any stab wounds the expensive clothes he’s wearing could be hiding before he sees the disgusting smile on Kevin’s face and decides that he doesn’t care all that much if someone managed to get to Kevin. 

The bread crumbs have disappeared in the time between Kevin vanishing down the hall and coming onto stage, which is a little disappointing in Andrew’s opinion. 

Kevin takes Kathy’s hand as he reaches half stage, leanes in to kiss her cheek and then turns with her to face the crowd. And then Kevin waves at the crowd and Andrew feels like his day is already over. It’s an endless minute before the rest of the crowd calms down and Kathy sits down on her desk with Kevin on the couch that makes it possible for him to see both Kathy and the audience.

“Kevin, Kevin, Kevin,” Kathy says and shakes her head in time to his name. “I still can’t believe I talked you into this.” Andrew vividly remembers that Kevin didn’t get talked into this and he snorts. “I hope you’ll forgive me for when i say it’s surreal to see you back here alone! I still think of you as one half of a whole.” 

“At least I have room to stretch out now,” Kevin says and Andrew can see him clenching his fingers a little. “I might have to do so in a minute. I can’t believe you expect us to be awake and presentable after last night’s games.” 

They start talking about Exy and that is enough to make Andrew tilt his head back. He focuses on the ceiling for a second, looks at all of the lights being directed at the stage and tunes back in when the people around him — and especially the rest of the Foxes — start to cheer and whistle. 

And it’s just in time to see Neil walking across the stage to Kathy’s desk. He shakes Kathy’s hand and then sits down next to Kevin and Andrew--Andrew blinks. It’s different, to see Neil dressed in a suit made out of expensive material that clings to his body as if it breathes with him instead of his usual ratty shirts that are a few sizes too big to fit Neil. It’s almost, Andrew thinks with amusement smeared thick on his mind and his foot tapping on the cable on the ground, as if Neil’s constantly trying to hide and disappear. 

Which, he adds a second later, isn’t that far off. 

“Isn’t this an interesting picture?” Kathy says into the direction of the audience as if anyone here is actually going to answer her. “Kevin is paired again.” 

If only she could see all the ways in which Kevin isn’t paired again. Kathy props her chin on her hand and leans over her desk to smile at Neil. “I'm not exaggerating much when I say you’re the talk of the nation, Neil. You’re the amateur who caught a national champion’s eye. This kind of thing should only happen in fairy tales, don’t you think? How does it feel?” 

“Undeserved,” Neil says and sounds like he means it. “I gave Millport everything I had because I knew it was going to be my only chance. Kevin was the last person I expected to see in Arizona.” 

Oh, and doesn’t Andrew know just how much truth is behind those words. 

“Lucky for us he found you,” Kathy says. “You have a natural talent for the game. It’s a pity you started so late. Imagine where you’d be today if you’d started a couple years ago. Maybe you would have been snatched up by Edgar Allan or USC, if Kevin’s right about your potential. Why did you wait so long?” 

“I was never really interested in team sports before,” Neil says and Andrew would know that it’s a lie even if he didn’t have the knowledge of Neil’s past that Neil gave him last week. Everyone with two functioning eyes is able to see that Neil is obsessed with Exy; nauseatingly so, even. “I only tried out at Millport because I was new in town and thought it’d help me get to know people. I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way.” 

“If it bothers you, I’ll take your spot,” Kathy says on the stage and then winks. “I don’t mind cozying up to Kevin.” 

Someone on Andrew’s left makes a quiet gagging noise and Andrew cheerily finds that he agrees with that. 

“Would you really come between two strikers?” Kevin asks. 

“Is it possible?” Kathy asks instead of answering the question. “It’s no secret there was hostility between you and the Foxes’ strikers last year—” 

Oh, Andrew thinks and lets out a breath that could be a sigh if he were anyone else, if only she knew how much hostility His Highness still causes on the court. 

“—Last night made it obvious there are still problems to work through with Seth. That doesn’t seem to be the case with you two.” 

And Andrew knows why. Whereas Seth is an idiot with enough agility on a good day and enough sense to cooperate with the rest of the team during games, he lacks the utter love and obsession that Neil seems to have for Exy, the love and obsession that make him into a mini Kevin. 

“Seth graduates in May,” Kevin says, “so there is less a chance or need to rehabilitate his style to mine. Neil, on the other hand, is just starting out. We have all the time in the world.” 

_“I’ll be gone by our match against Edgar Allan,”_ Neil says in his head, the memory playing over and over again like a broken record and Andrew lets his smile grow. 

“That implies you see this as a permanent gig,” Kathy says and blinks a few times through her lashes to which both Kevin and Neil look back with blank looks on their faces. “Do you really have no plans to return to Edgar Allan? Does it depend on how well you adjust to playing right-handed this eason, or do you intent to graduate from Palmetto State?” 

Kevin would be an even bigger idiot than he already is if he returned to the people, to the captain, that gave him the shove over the edge, that made him tumble out of his birds nest and land on one of his wings. “I would like to stay as long as Coach Wymack will have me.” 

That’s a stupid thing to say. Andrew knows this and he knows that Kevin knows it. Even if Wymack threatened to throw out Kevin’s contract, he would never let someone go like that — especially not a sob story like Kevin Day. 

“Ahh, the Ravens must be so sad to hear that,” Kathy says. “I imagine Riko misses you.” 

Yes, dear, poor, filthy rich Riko Moriyama and his inflated ego miss Kevin Day. Surely, Andrew thinks and flexes his fingers. The crack of his knuckles is awfully loud in the quiet audience and Wymack shoots him a look as if that is Andrew’s fault. 

Kevin sounds a little choked up when he says, “We will see each other again this fall.” 

“Indeed you will. They’re in your district now,” Kathy reminds him, as if it’s possible for Kevin to have forgotten. “Why the major change?”

“I don’t presume to understand Coach Moriyama’s motivations,” Kevin says and it’s a lie. It’s as obvious as a glaring neon sign in a dark night that Edgar Allan, that the Moriyama’s, are trying to say something with it, that they’re trying to set a trap that Kevin would step into if Andrew wasn’t steadily holding on to his shirt and tugging back. 

“You mean they didn't tell you?” Kathy seems genuinely surprised by the idea that Kevin and the rest of the Ravens don’t write each other letters and share their worries with each other. 

“We’re all very busy. It is difficult to keep in touch.”

“Well then,” Kathy says and something about her bright smile rubs Andrew the wrong way, though he can’t put his finger on what exactly it is. “Have I got a treat for you!”

Music starts blaring from the speakers, and it’s a dark melody with heavy drums that Andrew has memorized like his own face, a melody that sets the air alive with vibrations that Andrew can feel all the way to his ribcage. A melody that makes him want to reach under his armbands, even more so when the crowd starts chanting “king! king! king!” and then Andrew’s eyes connect with Kevin’s for all but a second and the shier panic in them make something inside of him come alive. And it’s dark and sharper than any blade he carries and he feels as if it’s about to cut him open and escape, he feels like he’s hovering hundreds of feet up in the air with nothing to break his fall and heavy amusement bubbles up inside of him and— 

—And then Riko Moriyama walks onto Kathy Ferdinand’s stage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small warning for riko and blood at the end of the chapter. 
> 
> please enjoy reading!

Andrew feels like there is not enough air for him to breathe, as if the walls are closing in on him for a second, as the self proclaimed King of Exy kisses Kathy’s cheek. Riko says something to Kathy, and it’s not loud enough for anyone to hear but Kathy has a smile big enough to mirror the one on Andrew’s face when she leans back. And then Riko walks near Kevin and Wymack swears next to Andrew, though Andrew really, really doesn’t feel like commenting on it. 

His anger is a small flame on most days, carefully cupped between hands made out of chemicals and balanced above gasoline that’s spilled all over the floor with lights throwing reflections as if the transparent liquid is a mirror laying on the ground. And then his mind is frozen and stuttering for all but a second, a second in which he hears someone ask “what the fuck is he doing here?”, and it’s enough to make the flame fall. 

It connects with the gasoline and there’s suddenly an inferno coming to life and white hot anger rules Andrew’s boy as if he’s burning from the inside out — like a building purely made out of wood that has been struck by lightning and set on fire. It cracks inside of his chest, pushes past and through the wall of amusement always standing tall and has him moving with a “I’ll go and ask him!” before he realizes it. 

There’s a scuffle and a crash from next to him and then, suddenly, the weight of another body on his lap. And there is a rule Andrew has, a rule more important than the others that fill his life like a minefield just waiting for someone to step into and cause chaos. It’s a line that doesn’t get crossed, a line that he doesn’t allow to get crossed, that he makes sure others don’t cross without getting hit with the rebound and then there are suddenly one, two, three, four, _five_ hands on him, burning into his skin like hot metal, and he wants to scream and laugh through the chemicals in his brain but there’s a hand covering his mouth and Andrew finds that he can’t because it feels like his head is held twenty feet underwater.

It’s automatic, it’s muscle memory, to try and lash out through the wall of amusement standing tall inside of him, to get the warmth from another body as far away from him as possible before the darkness creeping alongside his vision has any chance of leeching on to him. 

Andrew is out for blood for all but a second before he recognizes the glow of bright hair in the faint light of the studio, and in the second he does realize that it’s Renee sitting sideways in his lap, Renee who should know better than to do this, a warm wave of anger, albeit fainter and cooler than the anger already pulsing through his veins like white hot lava, rolls over him.

The sound of someone saying his name in a soothing tone breaks through his mind, cuts through the fog like a sword, and then they say it sharper and Andrew manages to breathe and someone else says it’s okay when it’s not. 

“I think you’ve shrunk since I last saw you,” the man Andrew swore to protect Kevin from, the man he cannot stop from holding Kevin at arms length, says on the stage and Andrew grits his teeth in a mad grin. “Don’t they feed you down there? I always heard southern food is heavy.” 

It probably sounds like concern to anyone else, but Andrew can hear the edge in his voice, the accusation that Kevin isn’t working as hard as he had been in the Nest. That he’s slacking off and indulging in the different varieties of food they have in South Carolina. It’s almost enough to shake Andrew out of his anger and make him break like glass, to make him divide into thousands of splinters and laugh.

Kevin can too, and it’s obvious by the way his shoulders tighten for a second. “I run it off the court, I guess.” 

“What a miracle,” Riko Moriyama says. 

“It truly is a miracle,” Kathy says and gestures between them with a smile. “Take a good look, everyone. Your golden pair is back, but for the first time ever, they’re rivals. Riko, Kevin, we thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for tolerating our incessant fanaticism.” 

Kevin lets himself sit on the couch again, closer to Neil than before, and Andrew can see him take a deep breath as Riko does the same on the opposite couch. 

Kathy looks at Riko. “From what I’ve just heard from Kevin, it sounds like neither of you have spoken in a while. Is that right?” 

“It is,” Riko says and the sound of his voice makes Andrew want to eat glass. “You sound surprised.” 

“Well, yes,” Kathy says. “I didn’t think it possible for you two to grow apart.” 

“A year ago it would have been impossible,” Riko says and Andrew is reminded of how he and Kevin were when they tried to recruit him. Like two sides of the same coin, like ying and yang. “But you have to understand how emotionally crushing December was—” 

Oh, and it was crushing, wasn’t it? 

“—the injury was Kevin’s to bear, but we all suffered from it. Some of us couldn’t handle the reality of what that accident meant, myself included. Kevin and I grew up at Evermore. We built our lives around that team and our pair work. I couldn’t believe we’d lost it. I couldn’t accept that our dreams had collapsed. Neither could he, so we withdrew from each other.” 

It’s all a load of bullshit, Andrew knows. Riko had thrown a fit, lashed out at the person who considered him a brother and then thrown Kevin away like a child does with a broken toy. Andrew would wonder if they teach lying that good at Evermore, but he knows what goes on behind the walls of the castle the king rules from Kevin and he is oddly amused by his. His lips twitch up in a smile when Renee pulls her hand back, but his hands ball into fists at his sides. 

Amusement bubbles up from deep inside of him as Andrew sits with the weight of Renee on his lap and watches the performance on the stage. Riko Moriyama is a man of many talents, Andrew can admit that, he twists and turns his words like others do with a rubix cube, he uses them as a weapon disguised as a present and plays the audience as like the grand performer he is. He is the man playing the piano in front of millions of watchers, his words are like knives wrapped in velvet and they are the notes playing in the air and hypnotizing the crowd, they sip into everyone’s skin like shards of glass and make them bleed emotions all. 

Andrew watches and he watches and watches and then, suddenly, there’s a voice breaking through the wild storm, the wild cocktail, of colorful and light amusement and burning hot anger. 

“I thought friends were supposed to cheer each other on,” Neil says, and both Riko and Kathy turn to him. “Believing in him now is the least you could do after completely abandoning him last winter.” 

There are boos from all around them, and then Matt and Dan whoop to balance it out and Andrew blinks. 

His attention zeroes in on Neil, where it catches and stays because that little act isn’t what Andrew had expected of a man who said that he can’t risk Kevin or Riko recognizing him. 

“Ah, forgive my bad manners,” Kathy says. “I didn’t forget you over there, I just got distracted. Let’s get the pair of you introduced, though I’m not sure either one of you needs an introduction by now.” She points to Riko. “Riko, Neil.” Then at Neil. “Neil, Riko. Kevin’s past and present, or should I say past and future?” 

Riko looks at Neil. “To address that accusation of yours: mine and Kevin’s relationship is unique, and I do not expect you to understand it. Do not impress on us your petty ideas of friendship.” 

“Was unique,” Neil says, and then he emphasizes again, “ _Was_. I’m pretty sure your relationship died when he couldn’t keep up with your team anymore.” 

“Kevin chose to leave Edgar Allan,” Riko says and Neil tilts his head. “We mourned his absence but were glad to hear he found a coaching position.” 

Oh, Andrew is sure they mourned the loss of Kevin Day at Evermore after breaking him and practically leaving him to die. His hand itches, itches with the need to grab his knives and cut Riko open from top to bottom like a science project. 

“But you’re not happy he’s playing again,” Neil says. “Isn’t that why you transferred to our district?” Neil asks and hits the nail on the head so accurately that Andrew feels, absurdly, like throwing his head back and laughing. “You don’t think Kevin should be on the court again, so you’ll cut him off at the pass. You’ll destroy his chance of making a comeback and make him watch as your team succeeds yet again. You’re rubbing his face in everything he’s lost, and from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re enjoying it.” 

“I will ask you only once to tone down that animosity.” 

“I can’t,” Neil says, and then bares his teeth in a weak attempt at a smile but it fails completely with the sharpness of it. “I have a bit of an attitude problem.” 

Andrew thinks that that is a bit of an understatement and Riko does apparently too, from the way he smiles and from the way his smile looks like a sea frozen over, and it makes Andrew want to reach for his knives even more. “A bit?” 

“Neil does bring up a valid point I’d like to discuss,” Kathy interrupts and almost stumbles over her own words. “This district change is an unprecedented move. For it to be Edgar Allan makes it more surprising. Neither your coach nor the Exy Rules and Regulations Committee has given a satisfactory reason, but I don’t think Neil’s far off in thinking you transferred because of Kevin.” 

“Kevin plays only a small role in our decision--,” Riko says and he’s lying through his teeth as he does. 

All of this is an act, the district change, his words dipped in honey to sweeten them up and make them appetizing to feed them to everyone, and Riko and Kevin are in the possession of different scripts for the main role. 

“—and not for the reasons this child claims. It was not a decision made lightly on our part and we’ve taken an unfair bit of criticism for it. The north says we are transferring to keep our ranking secure, as if they ever had a chance of unseating us, and the south cries unfair at having to contend with us. We are the nation’s best team, after all, and the southeastern district is.. Well, it’s subpar, to be polite. To be honest, its teams are dreadful. We hope our transfer changes that. We’re here to inspire the south.” 

Yes, and they truly do inspire, Andrew thinks and starts quickly tapping his foot against the thick cable laying on the floor in front of him, but not in the way they think they are. The Ravens, and especially Riko Moriyama, inspire Andrew to commit a crime. 

“Kevin cannot and will not play for us again,” Riko says when Andrew tunes back in. It’s true, that Kevin can’t and won’t play for the Ravens again, but for completely different reasons than the ones Riko Moriyama feeds the audience with a silver spoon like a mother with her child. “He knows this; this is why he did not return to us this spring.Our affection for him—” nonexistent affection “—doesn’t forgive his new inadequacies on the court, and he respects the Ravens too much to drag us down. That doesn’t mean Evermore isn’t home. His work with the Foxes this spring proved we can find a place for him on our staff. We’d like him to return to us as one of our coaches.” 

It probably sounds like a generous offer to the audience and everyone at home following the show, but it’s nothing more than an insult to Kevin and his capabilities. Making Kevin return to Edgar Allan and making him a Coach instead of letting him play Exy would be similar to catching an animal in the wild and putting it in a cage, similar to putting Andrew on his medication. 

“Sounds like a difficult choice, Kevin,” Kathy says and tilts her head and Andrew wants to get up and punch Riko Moriyama directly in his face because he knows the influence he has on Kevin is long from being gone. Riko could tell Kevin to come and Kevin would follow. “I have to admit both ideas fascinate me. As much as I love watching the Foxes improve, it breaks my heart to see you away from Edgar Allan.” 

“You wouldn’t honestly have him go back, would you?” Neil asks. “I can’t believe it.” 

“This has nothing to do with you,” Riko says. 

“Stop being so selfish,” Neil says. Kathy gapes at him, Kevin seems to be pinching Neil’s arm and Andrew’s erratic thoughts screech to an absolute stop.

He is a jar of water, a clear jar made out of glass thick enough not to break easily. The water inside is still at this moment, eerily contradicting the usual storm that brews inside and throws waves against the walls. A single noise breaks through the stillness; there is a crack on the glass, and it’s sudden and small and it’s not enough to break through the transparent solid, but enough to make a tsunami wave crash louder than an explosion against the glass and Andrew’s thoughts start again with the next breath he takes. 

“If Kevin’s dream has always been to be the best on the court, what right do you have to take it away from him? Why would you ask him to settle for less?” Neil asks despite probably knowing the answer. “The Foxes are giving him a chance to play whereas you’d relegate him to the sidelines. He has no reason to transfer back.” 

“Palmetto State is a waste of his talents.” 

“Not as much as Edgar Allan was,” Neil says, voice sharp enough to crack through the air like a whip and someone, Andrew doesn’t look who, laughs near him. “Your team’s ranked first? Congratulations and big deal. Maintaining a top position is far easier than starting over from the gutters. Kevin is doing that right now. He’s facing entirely new schools and learning to play with his less dominant hand. When he masters it, and he will, he’ll be better than you could ever have made him.”

There’s something building deep inside of Andrew as he watches Neil’s mouthiness, past the protection of his ribcage, and it buzzes around like a bee would around something sugary and entirely unhealthy. Andrew almost wants to reach out, to grab it and rip it apart for him to analyze, but he knows that it will be like trying to catch a cloud.

“Do you know why?” Neil asks, and then continues before Riko has the chance to answer, “It’s not just his natural talent. It’s because he’s with us. There are only ten Foxes this year. That’s one sub for every position. Think about it. Last night we played Breckenridge. They have twenty-seven people on their roster. They can burn through players as fast as they want because they have a pile of replacements. We don’t have that luxury. We have to hold our ground on our own.”

The Foxes around them cheer, minus Wymack and Matt who are still holding Andrew and their grips burns like hot iron on his skin. Riko says, over the applause, “You didn’t hold your ground. Your school is the laughingstock of the NCAA. You’re a team with no concept of teamwork.” 

“Lucky for you,” Neil says, and throws another smile at Riko that probably looks friendly to the crowd around them, but the Foxes have seen Neil often enough to know it isn’t and Andrew has read enough of his body language to see the sharpness in it. It makes faint amusement bubble up inside of him. “If we were a unified front you wouldn’t have a chance against us.” 

“You cannot last and your unfounded arrogance is offensive to everyone who actually earned a spot in Class I. Everyone knows the only reason Palmetto qualified for this division is because of your coach.” 

“Funny, I’m pretty sure that’s how Edgar Allan qualified,” Neil shoots back. 

Andrew’s eyes flicker from him to Riko and back as if they’re playing a round of tennis and he’s looking at the ball. The corners of his mouth pull up over his clenched teeth. 

“We’ve earned our prestige a thousand times over. You’ve earned nothing but pity and scorn, neither of which should be tolerated in a sport. Someone as inexperienced as you are has no right to have an opinion on the matter.” 

Neil, who seems to have a very big opinion on it anyway, shrugs. “All the same, I’ll give you one more. I don’t think you’re telling Kevin to sit out because of his health,” he says and Andrew feels the air rush out of his body as if he’s a balloon who tried to cuddle with something very sharp. “I think you know this season is going to be a disaster for your reputation. You and Kevin have always played in each other’s shadows. You’ve always been a pair.” 

“Now you have to face each other on the court as rivals for the first time, and people are finally going to know which one of you is better. They’re going to know how premature this was,” Neil says with bite and gestures at his own face to show that he means Riko’s and Kevin’s tattoos. “I think you’re scared.” 

Riko smiles and it’s with a coldness that looks like it can freeze hell. “I am not scared of Kevin. I know him.”

“You’re going to eat those words,” Neil says. “You’re going to choke on them.” 

There’s a sudden white noise in Andrew’s ears as he keeps his eyes on Neil and he looks and looks and can’t stop looking as Kathy says something, followed by Kevin and the crowd cheering. 

Neil, Andrew thinks with rage pumping through his veins in a slow burn that almost leaves him gasping for breath as if his head had been pushed underwater. Neil, the runaway. Neil, who’d implied he would be done if Riko recognized him and word got to his father. Neil, who had given the impression that he wanted to stay under the radar to avoid this. 

Neil, sharp mouthed, hard eyed Neil who had turned from simple prey into a predator in the blink of an eye right in front of millions of eyes as if he has a deathwish. 

Oh, Andrew thinks with something like amusement breaking the hot ice inside of him into a million little sharp pieces that bury under his skin, a problem turned a bigger problem, impossibly. 

The weight disappears from his lap and Andrew is on his feet before he knows it, shrugs off the hands that have gone loose as soon as Kevin and Neil left the stage, and throws a grin that is more a show a teeth than anything else at Wymack. 

“Be right back,” he says and then adds, over his shoulder, “don’t miss me too much!” And then Andrew proceeds to ram his elbows into people who aren’t even in his way just to be a little difficult. 

Andrew manages to find them near a hallway off the stage and it’s really not all that hard because Riko is japping something in Japanese and it sounds more like one of those little dogs that bite ankles for fun is more than a warn signal than anything else. 

The first thing Andrew sees is Kevin holding his face with one hand which, impossibly, sparks even more anger inside of Andrew. Then, Neil tripping over wires in a try to escape from Riko Moriyama and that— 

— that makes something very, very ugly stir deep inside of Andrew and he suddenly has the need to get not only Kevin but also Neil away, away, away from Riko Moriyama.

He takes a split second and makes a decision, one that he knows will come and bite him in the ass sooner rather than later, and then moves in front of Neil before Riko has a chance to get his grabby hands on him. “Riko,” Andrew says and spreads his arms. It probably looks like an offer for a hug but all Andrew really wants to do is squeeze the last breath out of the other man. “It’s been a while.” 

Riko jerks back in surprise and Andrew almost has the urge to snort. It’s a close thing, really, and it flies out of the window again when Riko opens his mouth. “We were just talking about you.” 

Which is, for one, not the truth at all and they both know it and also incredibly rude since Andrew wasn’t even here to hear and join, not that he really cares about it. It’s only a little hypocritical.

“With your first, it seems,” Andrew says and then narrows his eyes. Bares his teeth in another smile. “Don’t touch my things, Riko. I don’t share.” 

Andrew reaches behind him — half because Neil needs to go right now and half because Andrew almost doubts that he is real, that he is here right now and not just a sign that Andrew is finally losing his mind — and makes contact with Neil, warm and solid under his hand, and pushes him. Luckily for both of them, Neil seems to be getting the hint and skirts around Andrew and Riko without looking back before he grabs Kevin’s arm and hauls him down the hall. 

“Kevin does not belong to you.” 

“Oh?” Andrew really doesn’t remember asking, which is weird because he does remember everything, doesn’t he? “Doesn’t he?” 

Riko clicks his tongue like someone would when they’re irritated with a child. “Don’t be ridiculous. Kevin only belongs to one person and to think that he would ever lower himself to someone like you is not only childish but insulting to Kevin’s and my persona.” 

That has to be the dumbest shit Andrew has heard all week, and that says a lot because his cousin, brother and Kevin live in the same dorm as him, but Andrew doesn’t say it. He really doesn’t have the time to stand around and talk to someone as stupid as Riko Moriyama but there is still anger inside of him that the wave of amusement hasn’t washed away yet.

So Andrew tilts his chin back far enough that he actually has to lower his eyes to look at Riko and doesn’t resist the urge to let a smile grow on his face. “That’s big talk from someone who clipped Kevin’s wings short enough to stop him from flying before shoving him out of the Nest, isn’t it?” 

“Who do you think you are to—” 

“I’m Andrew,” Andrew says and narrows his eyes. “Funny, I didn’t think I was this forgettable. Or do you maybe show early signs of dementia? You are older than me, after all. My condolences!” 

“Listen—” 

“No, Riko, you listen.” Andrew forces the smile off his and cocks his head to the side. “And stay away from Kevin. You don’t want to find yourself tripping into a knife anytime soon. It’s the start of the season and it would be a shame for your team if you couldn’t play. Imagine all the crying fans, all the hearts you would break.” 

“I’m not scared of you,” Riko says, and suddenly Andrew is bored, and his fingers itch for a cigarette at his sides instead of for a knife to bury deep into Riko’s gut. 

He looks down at his empty wrist and taps a finger to it. “Oh, how the time flies. I actually have a very important appointment right now that I absolutely cannot miss! Silly me to stand here and talk with you.” Andrew starts walking and throws one hand over his shoulder. “This was absolutely no fun! Let’s not repeat this and keep your ugly face away from Kevin.” 

He walks away before Riko has the chance to reply and finds the others easily enough. Abby is hugging Kevin when he comes closer and that just doesn’t sit right with Andrew. He has the urge to keep Kevin away from everyone, even if he logically knows that the Foxes are the last people to bring any harm upon him. 

“When I said Abby and I would look out for you, I didn’t mean you should pick a fight with Riko on national television,” Wymack says. “Should I have spelled that out beforehand?” 

“Probably,” Neil says and something inside of Andrew goes ‘oh right, Neil’ at the sight of him because a part of him half expected Neil to be gone by the time Andrew came out. But here he is, standing with the others and looking up and Wymack with a blank face. 

“It’s fine, Coach,” Andrew says and brushes his fingers lightly against the small of Neil’s back on his way to Kevin where he presses a hand to Abby’s arm to get her to back off. “Kevin, we’re going. Right now, okay?” 

Kevin lets go of Abby and Andrew pushes him out of the door and into the parking lot. Andrew doesn’t say a word to Kevin, he doesn’t say a word when first Nicky and Aaron and then the rest join them and he doesn’t say anything when he takes his seat on the bus in the last row. 

He does turn his head to the window, however, and watches the scenery pass as his thoughts run at full speed inside his head. Neil has felt warm and solid back in the studio, and he had felt warm and solid just now. Andrew thinks if he checked now, Neil would still be warm and solid and real and—

—and it doesn’t make sense at all. 

It’s another puzzle piece that doesn’t fit no matter how Andrew turns and twists it, another book handed to him by Neil in a language he doesn’t understand, another lock added to the door without a keyhole. 

Neil had said to Andrew that he couldn’t risk the Moriyama’s recognizing him and he doubts that Neil had been as mouthy as a kid when he, Riko and Kevin all met for the first time, but for someone who wants to hide and not be pulled into the light, he surely did a good job of tripping and stumbling into the spotlight himself. 

Riko Moriyama doesn’t scare Andrew, and he obviously doesn’t scare Neil as much as he thought he did, but from what he knows from Kevin, Riko is noisy enough to pull on more than one monster tail to make background checks. 

It’s ridiculous, really, that this has faint anger bubbling up inside of Andrew, but it’s already there, sitting under his ribcage and pulsing with the beats of his heart, pumping through his veins like his blood. 

The anger doesn’t fade like it usually does. It clings to him with sharp claws, pulls at his skin and stretches it like worn gum, all the way to Palmetto and it’s almost enough to have Andrew not stand still when Wymack puts a hand in Andrew’s path on Andrew’s way out. 

“Be smart.” 

He probably expects Andrew to break into his apartment again this night, but he really shouldn’t be concerned about that. Andrew has other things to take care of, not that he tells Andrew that. But he does flap a hand at Wymack. “I know, I know.” 

Wymack drops his hand and Andrew takes the stairs down, not stopping on his way to the dorm or the stairs up, the small cloud of anger in his mind strong enough to push him to go, go, _go_. 

“Hey,” Dan says as Andrew unlocks the door to their dorm and Andrew looks back and points at his face because there is no way she’s talking to him. “Let’s have lunch together as a team,” she says and Andrew knows she’s definitely not talking to him. “We don’t have to talk about this morning if you don’t want to.” 

Andrew takes the time to pretend to think about it, because apparently she does mean him by the way she’s looking at him and then says, “No.” He opens the door and steps out of the way for Kevin, the need to have his eyes on him, to see enter the dorm before him, is stronger than Andrew’s own need to escape. 

“Don’t worry, Kevin,” Dan says as Kevin starts into the room. “We’ll figure this out together.” 

There is no way that she means ‘we’ as in ‘your group and my group’ because that is something that will simply never happen, and because they couldn’t help anyway, because they don’t understand and don’t even try to. It will never happen if Andrew has any say in it. 

Kevin actually glances back and Andrew heaves a small sigh through clenched teeth before he puts a hand to Kevin’s back and shoves him inside, making him stumble over one of his own magazines. 

Andrew can feel the scowl Dan levels at him as Aaron and Nicky follow Kevin and he smiles at her, wags his fingers in goodby and then slams the door in her face. 

He sits down on his desk, hums a melody familiar and unfamiliar to him at the same time and lights a cigarette as Aaron goes into the kitchen, Nicky sits on the sofa and Kevin buries himself in one of the beanbag chairs like the miserable man whose life he leads. 

And Andrew keeps sitting and smoking as the sun wanders over the horizon, as people outside come and go and chase each other across the campus, as the smell of food travels through the dorm, as his thoughts get less and less cloudy until it’s almost time for him to take his next dose. 

But he doesn’t, not immediately, because now he can actually sit and observe everything that actually happened and it leaves him restless with an energy he doesn’t like at all. He slides down from his desk and goes into the bedroom in search for something to do that will take the sudden anger off of him that spikes, again, as he remembers and remembers and _remembers_ how much he couldn’t help Kevin even if their promise was stretched thin in the space between them, how useless he was in the crowd and how _Neil_ , of all people, wasn’t. 

And Neil—

—Neil is, all things considered, still a problem. A thread, a mild distraction that makes Andrew’s focus split into a million pieces, like a glass does when it meets the ground, from where it is supposed to be, from where it has been anchored for so long that it has become familiar. 

And that, combined with the utter uselessness of this morning, have Andrew balling his fist and aiming it at one of the windows before he even realizes what he’s doing. Glass cracks and then shatters under the force in which his fist makes contact with the cool material. The screen on the other side of the hole catches his fist and has it bouncing back inside. 

His skin breaks, it rips open over his knuckles and tiny splinters bury themselves in it; they glitter in the light like snow does in the winter and the pain is sharp but still so, so faint to the anger blowing through Andrew like a hurricane. 

“Andrew?” Someone asks from the doorway and Andrew turns as he hears a gasp. Hops onto the dresser closest to him as Nicky looks from the window to his fist and back. “Oh my god! Are you okay?” 

“The window isn’t,” Andrew says and folds his arms across his knees before Nicky thinks of doing something stupid like looking at it or offering to bandage it. “Guess someone has to fix it, hm?” 

Nicky opens and closes his mouth. “Can you, like, at least clean your hand so it doesn’t get infected?” He sighs when Andrew just stares at him because he can but he won’t and then turns around. “I’ll be right back.” 

“With Neil in tow, I hope,” Andrew says, and Nicky throws a frown over his shoulder before he leaves. Andrew lets his bloody hand dangle between his knees and flexes his fingers once, twice to check the damage but he knows enough about punching — even if it’s more aimed at punching humans — not to have ruined his hand. Kevin would start huffing and puffing and probably pop a blood vessel and nobody has time for that. 

“You could have destroyed your hand with a stunt like that.” 

Andrew pushes out a laugh at that, because he definitely could have and because Neil’s one track mind almost mirrors Kevin’s down to a tee. “Oh my, where would I be then?” 

“Off the team,” Neil says. “Where would Kevin be then?” 

It’s useless to think about it; Andrew’s hand is fine, he’s not going anywhere and neither is Kevin. Not if this works out. The air shifts a little as Neil crosses the room, and then again as he stops in front of Andrew. It’s enough to make Andrew’s smile widen. 

“Oh, Neil, as unpredictable as he is uneal,” Andrew says, because it’s the truth. “The last time we spoke you were afraid Riko would notice you. Either you lied to me or you changed your mind. I do hope it’s the latter, because I hate being lied to.” 

“I didn’t change my mind,” Neil says, “but I didn’t have a choice.” 

“There is always a choice.” 

“I had to say something.” 

“And what a thing to say!” Andrew says, because _really_. “You took a swing at Riko on live TV. He’s not going to take that sitting down, you know.” Riko hadn’t mentioned Neil earlier, but Andrew knows enough about him to know a tantrum from him can be catastrophic and after being ripped a new one on the talk show, there is only a small chance that he won’t lash out. Maybe it’s a small blessing that Riko’s brother won’t catch wind of it. Maybe. “How’s that target on your back feel?” 

“Familiar,” Neil says. 

It’s enough to have Andrew sit up and slump back against the screen of the window. He looks up and at Neil, at his eyes covered by the dark contacts that travel down to where Andrew’s hand slides into his lap. 

“Give him a couple of days and he’ll know everything about you,” Andrew says and then smiles when Neil looks at him. “Money greases the wheels of the world easier than blood does, and Riko has access to both. He’ll look for a way to get back at you, and it won’t take him long to see how cold your trail is.” 

No, it won’t take him long. Even if Neil has his appearance concealed and tries to fade into the background as much as possible, someone as nosy, as nasty, as Riko Moriyama has no problem dragging Neil out of the shadows he’s standing in by his feet.

“How long do you think it’ll take someone with his connections to figure out the truth?” 

Neil looks like someone punched him into the stomach. His eyes are blown wide with panic and something else Andrew can’t make out, but it’s enough to make him look like a deer caught in headlights. “Shut up.” 

“What will you do when he finds out?” Andrew asks, despite knowing the answer. “Run?” 

“You know I will.” 

“I know, I can see it,” Andrew says because it’s impossible not to notice the way Neil’s eyes start flickering around, quick enough that you could miss it with a blink, and the way tension gathers in his shoulders and legs. “You’ve got that look in your eye that says you know where every exit to this dormitory is.” 

And then Neil turns away and—

—and no, Andrew cannot let him run away and into his death, not after today, not after Kevin sees something in him, not after this itch has appeared inside of Andrew and won’t leave.

He rocks forward and grabs Neil’s collar, slips his fingers inside to drag Neil to a halt before he even has the chance to leave. His knuckles brush the back of Neil’s neck, and it’s hot under Andrew’s skin and leaves feelings like needles on it. 

“Hey, Neil,” Andrew, and then opens his mouth again when Neil tries to pry Andrew off. “Neil, listen. Running won’t save you this time.” 

“Let go of me.” 

“Don’t you understand?” Andrew asks. “Running was only an option when no one was looking.” And now thousands of people are, their gazes locked on the Foxes’ mouthy new player. “You knew that back in June. It’s why you wanted to leave before Riko knew you existed. You should have left before you insulted him in front of all his adoring fans. Now you can’t go. Riko wants to know who defied him, and he’ll get his answers. You can’t outrun your past anymore.” 

“I have to try,” Neil says. 

And that has Andrew humming in mock disapproval, because running from your past is really something that doesn’t go well — not on the long run, that is. “Have to nothing. There you go again, thinking there’s only one choice. I thought you didn’t want to leave.”

“I don’t want to.” 

The words _then don’t_ are on the tip of Andrew’s tongue, but he knows they won’t work. It won’t be this easy. “What would it take to make you stay?” 

At that, Neil turns back with wide eyes, looking like it’s the last thing he expected to hear — which.. is fair enough. “What?”

The little bit of the medication still in his blood has Andrew pushing out a laugh and leaning forward. “Name it and it’s yours. It doesn’t matter what it is so long as you stand your ground here with us.” 

“I can’t.” 

“You can,” Andrew says. He has seen Neil do it, yesterday and today, even if those were different situations. “You have everything you need to survive. You’re just too afraid to see it.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

Andrew sighs because this constant back and forth of ‘I can’t this’ and ‘I don’t that’ is starting to get old really, really fast. “Riko will find out the truth, but he can’t tell his brother. For starters, Riko and Ichirou aren’t allowed to associate with each other, seeing how they belong to separate branches. More importantly, Coach Moriyama won’t let him. This year is about Kevin and Riko, see?” 

About the two brothers who had been driven apart, and all that stuff that gets twisted by the Moriyama’s enough that it looks heartbreaking enough for Exy fans. This year is about that, about their showdown and Andrew is sure they wouldn’t want anything to distract from that, not even small Neil Josten. And that means that they’re basically free to make his life a living hell and do whatever they want as long as they don’t sell him out yet. 

“Use that time to narrow the angles they can get at you,” Andrew says, his knuckles still on the hot skin of Neil’s neck and smearing blood on it. “Kevin wants to make you a star, so let him. Take what he is giving you and make it your shield. It’s hard to kill a man when everyone’s eyes are on him. Make them love you, make them hate you, I don’t care,” he says, because he really doesn’t. “Just make them look at you.” 

“You have one year to figure it out,” Andrew says and lifts his free hand to put a finger in Neil’s face. “For one year, I’ll stand between you and the Moriyamas if you stand at Kevin’s side—” Much like earlier, he doesn’t add, “—Next year your life is your problem again, understand?” 

“Why?” Neil asks, sounding as if he’s being broken from the inside. “Why would you help me?” 

“Ask me later,” Andrew says and then lets Neil go to tap his bloody fingers against his mouth that’s still pulled into a grin. “It’s better if this isn’t in the way, don’t you think? You’ll get your answers in Columbia.” What Andrew doesn’t say, what Neil doesn’t need to know, is that it’s easier to ignore the never leaving itch that has made itself home behind his ribcage every since Neil came to Palmetto when Andrew isn’t on his medication. “Oh, but no one told you yet, did they? You’re coming out with us tonight.” 

Neil makes a face as if he bit into something sour. “Never again.” 

It’s an answer that should’ve been expected, especially after how his last time went, but Andrew shushes him anyway, just because he feels like doing it. “If you want to, you’ll come with us at nine. If you’re stupid enough to run, pack up and leave before then.” 

There are almost exactly three hours between now and nine for Neil to make up his mind and Andrew thinks he’s being more than generous with that. 

“That’s not enough time.” 

“I doubt you’re a stringer to snap judgements when it comes to saving your skin,” Andrew says and he knows they’re both thinking about the binder and the duffle bag. “You gave your game to Kevin.” He remembers the sudden need he has felt earlier, the need to put himself between Neil and Riko, the need to get Neil away _fast_ and adds, “give your back to me.” 

Andrew doesn’t wait for an answer, because he knows that he won’t get one right now, not immediately, and pulls his medicine out of his pocket to shake a pull onto the dresser between his thighs. He chucks the pill bottle at the corner of the room and picks up the pill, holds it up where it catches in the light, and with amusement very, very faintly in his gut, thinks about how much he hates this before pushing it between his lips. 

He drops his hand in his lap, ignores the sting of the damage on it and bares his teeth at Neil in a grin. “Tick tock, says the clock,” he says and then drops his smile. “Get out of my room.” 

Outside, a few students are walking here and there, athletes are throwing water around like confetti and then there’s the sound of a door banging open. Andrew watches as Neil makes his way outside on unsteady feet, still in the same clothes, and then takes off down the road. 

Andrew looks up, notices that the few stars on the horizon that are already visible despite the sun still shining mirror the faint splatter of freckles he had seen on Neil’s face only minutes before and lets another grin take over his face as he looks back down to where he can still make out Neil running down the road and can’t make a black duffle bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for character death, drugs, suicide, mention of suicide and alcohon (+ roland; he comes with his own warning.) 
> 
> please enjoy.

Andrew eventually goes to clean up his hand. 

He doesn’t wrap it because there is no need to; the glass was enough to break through his layers of skin, to make him bleed and feel the sting, but not enough to leave a scar, and puts on a different, thought equally black, shirt when he’s done. 

When he walks into the living room afterwards, it’s to see Nicky and Kevin in front of the television. Aaron is nowhere to see, but there’s noises coming from the kitchen and then silence, which probably means he’s texting his little cheerleader. Annoyance bubbles up inside of him for all but a second before it’s carried away and as good as forgotten again. 

He pulls his pack of cigarettes out and shakes one out before lighting it, turning his head as he inhales and lets the acrid smoke burn all the way down to his lungs. 

“Oh, congratulations!” Andrew says and taps his finger on the cigarette to make some of the ash fall. Kevin and Nicky both look up, both so puzzled that Andrew can’t help but let out a sigh before adding, “I’m keeping Neil, so you better get used to seeing his face around a little more, yes?” 

Then Andrew focuses on his cousin, the smile that has been on his face since he saw Neil without his ugly duffle bag at his side growing. “Nicky, you really want to go and buy some clothes for Neil, right? You really, really want to.” He throws his wallet at Nicky with a flick of his wrist and watches as it smacks him in the chest. “Give that back.” 

It’s oddly similar to how Wymack had woken up Andrew this morning, but Andrew doesn’t want to think about that right now. No, the baffled look on Kevin’s face is a lot more interesting than a little gesture Andrew might’ve stolen from their Coach. 

“Don’t touch my things. Rude.” Andrew pulls out twenty and holds them money close to Nicky’s face. “Go fetch. Go, go, go. We don’t have a lot of time.” 

Kevin holds all the way until Nicky’s out of the door with Aaron by his side, because Nicky maybe does have some sense in him, and then he actually turns off the TV (sweet baby Jesus, Andrew thinks) and the Exy game that had been playing does dark. 

“You’re keeping Neil?” It’s the question Andrew had been expecting and still one he doesn’t think he will answer. 

While it is true that Andrew has Kevin’s back, and will have his back as long as it’s necessary, will break himself first before he breaks that promise, Neil has Kevin’s attention — and that is a good thing because it means Kevin has someone to bond with and because Kevin’s attention will stay on the Foxes and he won’t be as easily tempted to go back to Riko when the Raven whistles, or at least if Neil stays. 

Keeping Neil means that, _yes_ , Andrew is keeping both Kevin and Neil safe, and both of them stay exactly where they are and that, in turn, it brings Kevin one step closer to keeping his part of their promise. It’s like a domino chain, and it’s a domino chain that makes Neil incredibly invaluable to Andrew, but he doesn’t think Kevin would understand why Andrew clings to this promise with his whole being and Andrew really doesn’t feel like trying to talk to a wall.

So he says nothing, because he also doesn’t want to say that he doubts that Kevin will be the first person to keep their side of the promise, not when Andrew is so used to being the person that holds on to them when the others don’t, but that he’s curious enough to lean back and see how it will go, and starts humming instead. He even swings his feet and almost hits Kevin in the shins for effect. 

“Andrew.” 

“Kevin.” 

“What?”

“What?” Andrew blows smoke directly in Kevin’s face and loses interest in whatever it is Kevin is asking for when the striker starts coughing and pounding on his own chest. He turns his head instead, feet still swinging and boots connecting with Kevin’s shins, and watches the parking lot in front of the Fox Tower. 

There’s a knock on the door a little later and Kevin looks at Andrew as if he expects Andrew to actually stand up and open it, so Andrew looks over his shoulder as if someone is behind him until Kevin sighs and opens the door. 

“Hello Kevin,” Renee says and throws a smile over his shoulder that probably looks calm to the rest of the upperclassmen but that’s full of tension. She doesn’t waste any time, she never does, and asks, “Say, how soon can we expect Riko to respond?” 

Kevin makes a noise from the back of his throat and looks down for a second. “We’ll hear back tonight.” 

“Oh, thank you,” she says and then looks around. “Are Nicky and Aaron not here?” 

“No,” Kevin says at the same time Andrew says, “Yes but they mastered invisibility, so good luck at finding them!” 

“Wait,” someone says from behind Renee and then Matt is stepping up next to her, his form appearing taller next to Renee’s short one. “Where’s Neil? Didn’t he come here?” 

Andrew snorts and points at the window. “Wow, what a coincidence! You just missed him!” He watches as Matt and someone he can’t see, probably Dan, share a glance and then swings his foot hard enough to make his boot his the underside of the desk. The noise is enough to make Matt look back at him. “Don’t go wetting your pants now, your little runner will be back at nine.” 

They look as if they’re about to argue, so Andrew holds up his hands in an innocent gesture probably no one believes and says, with his eyes wide, “Promise.” Then he looks down at his wrist and taps on it. “Shoo, now! I have a pretty important appointment, like, now and i’d hate to be late! Goodbye, it wasn’t a pleasure.” 

Kevin closes the door when Matt mumbles a curse under his breath and looks accusingly at Andrew. Andrew has no idea why Kevin could possibly be looking at him like that, so he looks over his shoulder at the wall again and decides Kevin doesn’t like its color before he looks outside again.

The sky's still blue, if less intense than when they came back from North Carolina, and, oh, that makes a sliver of fury awaken in Andrew for all but a second before it’s carried away by the fog in his mind and then it’s gone as if it hadn’t been there in the first place. 

Andrew watches the parking lot and keeps swinging his feet and smoking his cigarettes, and he keeps watching for a dark mop of hair, even as the after-party crowds start to built, even as he sees his car come back and Nicky and Aaron walk by happy drunks on the grass, even after the sun wanders and begins to set, even as the shadows stretch across the ground as if pulled longer, even as the crowds thin after what seems to be less than a minute, a slow blink of Andrew’s eyes. 

And then — at nine on the dot as if he had planned it — there is a figure running back towards the building, dark hair even darker now that the sun is setting and skin glowing in the missing sunlight. 

Andrew is moving before he knows it, sitting up and half expecting his bones to creak like a door that hasn’t been oiled in a long time from how long he’s been on his desk. He sweeps Kevin, Nicky and Aaron with a quick look to find them all ready and playing with their phones and Andrew tilts his head to the side in a wordless command, ignores the itch that sits under his skin like a parasite that just doesn’t want to leave no matter what Andrew does. 

He slips from his desk and walks to the door to swing it open and then—then he takes a breath. Neil is standing a few inches away from him, fist raised as if he’s either ready to knock on the door or take a swing at Andrew and Andrew really hopes for Neil’s sake that it isn’t the latter because that would be really, incredibly embarrassing for him. 

“Oh, he made it,” Andrew says, as if he’s surprised because Neil really doesn’t need to know that Andrew’s been sitting and watching the parking lot for his return. “That’s interesting.” 

And it’s then that Andrew sees the look in Neil’s eyes. It resembles the look of a deer caught in headlights, one Andrew has seen countless of times on Neil’s face already.. No, Andrew thinks as he notices the way Neil’s pupils are blown wide, not like a deer but more like a rabbit watching a predator. 

He presses two fingers to Neil’s throat and ignores the warmth of his soft skin there, the warmth that sips into his being as if it’s a piece of glass breaking through his own skin, and catches Neil’s free hand when he tries to bat Andrew away. It’s surprising, really, that his pulse is steady, his heartbeat like a metronome, like an echo of Andrew’s own, instead of the hammering Andrew had been looking for. 

It’s enough to make Andrew smile again, small and fierce, as he leans into Neil’s space and ignores the warmth his whole body radiates. “Remember this feeling,” he says, and presses his fingers harder against Neil’s skin for a second. “This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.” 

He doesn’t wait for an answer, but slips past Neil and uses the weight of his own body and his grip on Neil’s wrist to pull Neil with him — and how easily Neil does go — out of the way of the door. He releases him in the middle of the hallway and shoves his hands in his pockets in a feeble try to get rid of the warm, prickly feeling that’s left from touching Neil and waits. 

Nicky is the next out of the room, his face lighting up like a kid’s at christmas when he sees Neil, and he’s followed by a skeptical Aaron whose glance Andrew ignores and then Kevin, but Andrew ignores him too in favor of watching Neil. 

Neil, who had been so, so quick to run like his life depended on in (which, Andrew thinks, it maybe does) earlier. Neil, who is part of Andrew’s mismatched family now. Neil, who makes Andrew want to pull him apart like a piece of chewing gum. Neil, who is still an unfinished puzzle. Neil, who looks too calm for someone who had been running for almost three hours. 

A door opening two doors down is what makes Neil look away from Andrew, and Andrew looks at the hard line of Neil’s jaw, and then there is the fucking itch again and he turns his head too. There are five strangers knocking on the dorm Neil shares with Matt and Seth, who opens the door to slap their backs and high five them. Allison isn’t far behind them; she presses herself against Seth’s back and slips her hands in his pockets in what would look like a cute or clingy gesture to anyone else, but Andrew recognizes someone checking for something when he sees it. She pulls out a lighter and a crumpled stick of gum and Seth glares at her over his shoulder. 

“I’m not stupid,” he says and Andrew highly disagrees but he doesn’t actually feel like vocalizing his thought. 

Allison kisses Seth to shut him up and Andrew looks past them to avoid.. that.. just in time to see Allison almost hitting Matt and Dan, who are stepping into the suite doorway, with Seth’s gum. Matt turns to avoid it, which puts Neil in his line of sight and Andrew watches as Matt smiles and it looks like the sun is shining out of his face with the force in which relief appears on it. It’s incredibly annoying. 

“Neil, you made it,” he says, and it’s loud enough that Allison and Seth turn around too. Neil, who is still standing close enough that Andrew can feel his body heat, turns from one person to the other. “Seth and Allison are going bar-hopping downtown—” 

And that has to be one of the dumbest things Andrew has heard in a long time, and since he lives not only with Kevin Day but also with his brother and cousin, that has to say a lot. After today, after Neil publically dragged (more like humiliated, he adds mentally) someone like Riko Moriyama, someone who so very clearly has more power than they do, going out is more than just stupid. 

But, Andrew tells himself and blinks with the corner of his mouth twitching, they aren’t his to protect. 

“—so the rest of us are prepping a movie marathon. Any requests or recommendations?” 

“You’re leaving campus?” Nicky asks Allison from somewhere next to Andrew. “Are you serious?” 

Allison scowls and Seth’s shirt wrinkles a little as she tightens her arms around his body. “It’s none of your business.” 

Matt sends her a look and then turns to Neil again. “Renee should be back with drinks any second.” Oh, Andrew thinks and tilts his head, that probably means that Allison and Seth will disappear before she is back to keep an eye on them. “She said she’d get something nonalcoholic for the two of you.” 

“Oh, what a waste,” Andrew says and sets a mental reminder to update Renee some time soon. “I’m buying Neil’s drinks tonight.”

It takes the others a couple of seconds to understand what he means, and when they do, Dan lurches out of the doorway with a sharp, “You’re joking.” 

“You wish I was,” Andrew says and lets out a laugh because he knows that it’s the truth. 

“The last time he went out with you he hitchhiked his way back,” Dan says, and that is the truth as well but what she doesn’t know is that the last time Andrew still thought Neil was a spy for Riko and feeding Riko information with a spoon like adults do with small children. She doesn’t know how necessary it was for Andrew to make sure that Neil wasn’t doing exactly that. She stabs a finger at Andrew without touching him and says, “He is not going out with you again. He’ll probably wind up dead this time.” 

Oh, and she really, really doesn’t know that now Andrew will end up dead first before Neil ever gets the chance to do so. 

“Jesus, Dan,” Nicky says. “When you say things like that it makes me think you don’t trust us.” 

“No one trusts you,” Matt says, which is.. fair enough. “What are you playing at?” 

“It’s not really any of your business,” Aaron says and that reminds Andrew that, right, his brother is standing somewhere near him as well. 

“I said he’s not going,” Dan says and Andrew lets his smile grow. “Neil, don’t let him push you around.” 

And Andrew really, really doesn’t approve of the tone she’s using. So he nudges Neil with his elbow, and dares him to cross a line in front of the others, to give up one of his countless secrets that only Andrew and Wymack know of, that Andrew hasn’t told the others of because it isn’t his, and says, “Hey, Neil. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that touching? Look how they weep over you. Ah, such misplaced concern. Tell them you can take care of yourself.” 

The others look at him like he’s crazy, which isn’t anything Andrew doesn’t know, but Aaron and Nicky, who understood every word that he just said to Neil in German, join in and Andrew suddenly feels like throwing his head back and laughing, even more so when he sees the look in Neil’s eyes. 

But then Neil swallows and says, “They’re not stupid enough to think it’s only a drink.” And it’s in German as well and it makes something bubble up inside of Andrew, something he hasn’t felt enough times to be familiarized with it, and it’s gone again in the wink of an eye, washed away by his medication. 

“Oh shit,” Nicky says, joining their conversation in German. “Since when do you speak German?” He looks at Andrew with furrowed brows. “Andrew, you knew about this? Why didn’t you tell us?” 

Because it wasn’t necessary for anyone else to know, because Andrew pushed Neil to give up a secret just now to see if he would, to see if it would make him less interesting (it didn’t). 

“Boring,” Andrew says. “Figure things out for yourself once in a while.” 

Nicky takes that without another comment to him and instead wags a hand at Aaron. “Quick,” he says. “Have we said anything totally incriminating these past few months?” 

“Aside from your endless inappropriate comments about what you’d like to do to him, I don’t think so. Looks like you’ve managed to completely embarrass yourself in both languages.” And then he asks Neil, “When were you going to tell us?”

“I wasn’t,” Neil says and Andrew can see him clenching his teeth from the way the muscle in his jaw jumps. “After everything I’ve put up with and from you this year I figured I didn’t owe you any favors.” 

Aaron shrugs instead of answering, Nicky rubs at his face with his hands and mutters something under his breath that is too quiet for Andrew to understand and the upperclassmen just stare at them in disbelief from their place down the hall. 

Matt opens his mouth and closes it, oddly resembling one of the fish you can look at in an aquarium and then says, “I thought you spoke french. That was French this morning, right?” He looks at Kevin, as if Kevin, from all people, will give him a good answer and then back to Neil and suddenly Andrew doesn’t find this conversation funny anymore. “At Kathy’s?”

Neither does Neil, apparently, because all he says is, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

And that is enough for Andrew to say, “We’re going.” He goes down the hall, Kevin high on his heels, and hears Dan say something to Neil and Neil answer something before hearing him and the rest following. 

They go down the stairs in a small line, and Andrew throws one look over his shoulder to see that Neil is the sore thumb in the middle as the only one not wearing something black yet. The sun is gone by the time they make it to the car, the air fresh on Andrew’s skin and he looks up at the sky that is clear from clouds as Neil gets into the backseat before him. 

There’s the sound of plastic and Andrew turns his head to see Nicky drop a bag in Neil’s lap. Nicky never gave him back the change, so Andrew is very much tempted to make Nicky pay later. Or to trip him down the stairs, but that idea gets thrown away again because Andrew knows he would have to deal with a whiny Nicky and that is not something he wants when he already has to deal with Kevin, who is constantly like that. 

The car ride to Columbia is different than the last time they went; since Andrew had been pretty much almost off his medication then, he hadn’t been interested in any conversation, he had been too occupied with his withdrawals. Now, though, there’s still a cloud over his thoughts — not as thick as it was three hours ago, give or take, but still prominent enough to make him feel like his blood is vibrating. 

And that is enough to have him follow along with Nicky’s conversation that goes bouncing from topics like music to movies and celebrities that Andrew doesn’t give a flying fuck about, and it’s enough to have him disagree with everything his cousin says. That is, until the fog clears, bit by bit, until he loses motivation and interest in talking, until Nicky dominates the conversation and Andrew doesn’t care enough not to let his silences stretch. 

Sweetie’s is as busy tonight as it has been on their last visit with Neil, and all the other visits before him. There’s a car pulling out when they arrive and Nicky steals the spot and pumps his fist into the air before they head inside together. There are two groups ahead of them waiting for a table and Kevin gives their name to the hostess as Andrew looks at Neil. 

“We need a number for crackers,” he says. Neil’s eyes wide, not as wide as the ones from people with panic are, but wide enough that Andrew can easily spot the rim of his contacts under the light. “Are you in or out?” 

“Do I really have a choice this time?” Neil asks. 

“From now on you do,” Andrew says and Neil doesn’t look like he believes him, which is something Andrew can maybe try to understand on another day. Sooner or later, Neil will have to realize that Andrew doesn’t lie, because it takes too much effort to do so, and that people just don’t ask him the right questions — or don’t ask at all. 

Neil shakes his head and Andrew points at the bag Neil has pressed under his right arm, the plastic reflecting the light from above, before he turns. He collects cracker packets for himself and the others, minus Neil, and then Kevin appears at his side and so does the hostess and they get their table. 

In the time it takes for Neil and Nicky to come back from the bathroom, they open three packs of crackers already. They prickle on Andrew’s tongue, it’s a little as if he touches a cactus with it, and then he swallows them down and takes a deep, yet quiet, breath as he waits for them to kick in. 

A waitress comes to jot down their orders and right as she’s done and stepping out of the way, Nicky slides into the booth and leaves the outside seat for Neil. And Andrew clenches his teeth against the urge to look up and rips open another pack of crackers, throws his head back and then his gaze already up and it meets Neil’s over the table and—

—and Andrew blinks, once, slowly. Takes less than a heartbeat to look into Neil’s eyes, now without the colored contacts to hide the intense blue beneath, before something inside of him starts to itch again and has Andrew looking away before he does something as stupid as trying to scratch it. 

“Don’t make me sick,” he hears Aaron say and realizes that he must’ve missed a small part of the conversation while he looked at Neil. And that fact is ridiculous enough that Andrew almost wishes that he is looking through the kaleidoscope of his medication so that he can laugh. He doesn’t, but it’s a close thing, really. 

“You know, if you’d get around to popping Katelyn one, you wouldn’t be so anal.” Nicky ducks as Aaron throws a wadded-up napkin at him and it flies by him to hit the ground. “It’s true. You are bringing her to the banquet, aren’t you?” 

“I haven’t asked her yet.” 

“I think Andrew should ask her and see if she can tell the difference.” 

Andrew lets a smile grow on his face, a very slow and small one, even though there is nothing amusing about this. No, there is really nothing amusing about a broken promise that buries himself under his skin with the same sharpness as the glass of the window did earlier. “Okay.” 

“You aren’t funny,” Aaron says to Nicky. “Shut up.” 

Their ice cream shows up and they eat in a silence that mirrors the one inside of Andrew. His brother throws enough money on the table to pay for the dessert and the crackers at the same time before they leave and make their way to Eden’s Twilight, where the line to get inside is half the size than the last time they visited. 

It makes sense to Andrew since alcohol sales are prohibited on Sunday, and it means that bars have to stop serving at midnight on Saturday. Midnight is about an hour and a half away from now, and he can hear Kevin japping about it from the passenger seat and then Nicky telling Neil that there’s a stash at their house. 

“But whose house is it?” Neil asks. 

“Technically it’s mine, but I consider it ours.” Nicky waves a hand to include everyone in it. “I left Germany so I could be Aaron and Andrew’s guardian, did you know? It was me or my super religious parents, and I figured I had a better chance of surviving Andrew.” Oh, and how true that is. “I bought the house so we’d have a place to stay. Dad co-signed it, but Erik helped me fund it. I use my monthly stipend to make payments on the mortgage.” 

“If you have a house, why did you stay with Abby this summer?” 

Because, Andrew thinks with his temple resting against the cool glass of the window next to him, Kevin is obsessed with Exy and he would’ve expected Andrew to drive him back and forth to the upstate for practice every day and that would’ve been way too much effort, in Andrew’s opinion. 

Nicky pulls up to the curb outside Eden’s Twilight long enough to collect a VIP parking pass and long enough for the others to climb out of the car and go inside while he goes down the street to the garage. The shortened hours make it easier for them to get a table, but the club is still so crowded that it would be incredibly easy to drown between the dancing bodies. 

Andrew leaves Aaron and Kevin to guard their seats, he knows they will not attempt to leave since they’re waiting for their drinks, and pulls at Neil’s collar once to get him to come to the bar. Roland is, like always when they’re here, on duty and the look on his face screams surprise as he sees Neil next to Andrew. 

“He said no,” Andrew says before Roland has a chance to open his mouth. “Keep them clean.” 

Neil’s eyes, blue blue blue, jump back and forth, as if Andrew just said this for show and as if Andrew didn’t tell the truth, and then catch on the empty cup and sealed can of coda Roland passes him. He lifts the glass as soon as Roland starts to mix the remaining drinks, obviously checking it for residue. 

“Paranoid,” Andrew says, because he really can’t help himself. 

“If you’re such a control freak you shouldn’t be drinking either.” 

“I know what my limits are,” Andrew says and doesn’t just mean the alcohol and dust when he says it. They’re a reminder to himself, a reminder that this itch under his skin is out of his reach, and that it will stay out of reach, even if he’d stretch out his arm in an attempt to reach and scratch it. A reminder it’s better like this. “I’m not going to test them.” 

“And dust?” 

“Too much crazy in this system for dust to make a difference, I guess,” he says and then decides to take a leap. A little bit of honesty, in exchange for a little bit of trust from Neil, maybe as something to balance out shoving Neil into the cold water in the dorms earlier. “We got into dust for Aaron’s sake. He needed something safe to get on when he was coming off everything his mother gave him.” 

“Do you remember this game?” He asks and gestures between their faces. “We’re doing the honesty thing again, at least until I grow bored of it. In a moment you’re going to be perfectly honest with me and tell me what I have to do to keep you here.” 

“Here’s some honesty,” Neil says, the words so sharp as if his tongue is made out of knives. “I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you.” 

“That’s mutual,” Andrew says, because it is. Neil doesn’t have to like him to give him his back, but the difference between him and Kevin, apart from the pretty obvious one, is that Kevin trusts him enough on a good day. “That doesn’t change anything.” 

“Nicky says you’re only keeping me here because of Kevin.” Andrew really, really thinks Nicky should learn to hold his tongue now and then. “What happens if Kevin gets bored of me?” 

Andrew can’t see that happen anytime soon since Kevin acts like Neil is this fascinating project he just started on, but he doesn’t tell Neil that; not if Neil isn’t aware enough to notice it himself. “Keep his interest,” he says insead. 

Neil just gazes at him for a second and then asks. “Can you protect me from my past?” 

“Your father’s boss,” Andrew guesses from all of what Neil had told him after their first visit in Columbia together when they had been standing in Wymack’s living room, with the sun too hot on Andrew’s skin and Neil’s eyes too dark on his own. 

“Yes,” Neil says. “Word got around that the Moriyamas didn’t trust his people anymore, and his business never really recovered. He’s been after me ever since. He was arrested on some small charges a while back but he won’t be in jail forever.”

Ah, and wouldn’t that be a dream wish come true? A monster of the past found guilty and locked away for the rest of its life? Andrew’s fingers twitch at the thought, for a cigarette and the handle of his knife between them. 

“You said the Moriyamas can’t touch me this year because of Kevin, but he won’t stop. If he finds me, he’ll kill me.” 

“What a mess,” Andrew says and decides to pick apart that piece of information later. Later, when his head is completely clear. Later, when Neil isn’t directly next to him and he can’t feel the warmth of his body leaching into his own and when he can’t feel his bright gaze burning into his skull like fire. “Easy enough to take care of, though.” 

A group of people shoulders their way up to the bar right after the words leave Andrew’s mouth and they push Neil into Andrew. Andrew doesn’t budge beneath his weight, not even a little, even as a cold shiver runs over his skin at the sudden and unexpected contact. 

It’s then that Roland returns with their drinks. Andrew takes the tray and motions for Neil to go ahead before he feels Roland looking at him and looks back for a second before following Neil. Aaron and Kevin are still at their table, muttering something to each other that’s too quiet to understand, but they both look like sad excuses for grown adults. He unloads the drinks onto their tabletop and Nicky shows up when he’s done. 

It doesn’t take too long for the cups to be empty again, not when they’re racing the clock to midnight and Andrew collects the empty cups on the tray again before he makes his way back to the bar alone. He puts the tray down when he arrives but doesn’t stop and keeps walking to a door on the right labeled with an ‘Employees Only’ sign that he ignores to enter. 

He has the time to look at the break room that opens before him, at the computer on the right, the small window allowing a sliver of light from the streetlamp in the alley to be thrown inside, at the three lockers on the left standing before two benches and the door in the corner that leads to the back alley before the door behind him opens. 

“Come here often?” Roland asks and snorts when Andrew turns a flat look on him. He leans against the door, hands shoved into the pockets of his low hanging jeans. “Don’t look at me like that. I missed you the last time, you know?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Andrew says. If he wants to talk to someone, he goes to his therapist and not a bartender in a nightclub. He spares Roland’s hands a glance as he steps closer and says, “Keep your hands to yourself.” 

Roland smirks. “I’ll try my best.” He closes his eyes as Andrew comes a little closer, close enough to feel Roland’s breath on his face. It’s minty, as if Roland had been sucking on a mint only seconds before and Andrew looks at the hair framing his face as he leans in and then his lips brush Roland’s chapped ones and Roland opens his eyes and-- 

\--and for a second Andrew sees eyes in the color of the frozen ocean instead of warm brown ones, and his whole body shivers and Andrew feels himself freeze before fury bubbles up inside of him so suddenly, so hot that he has to move away, one step and then four, to breathe.

“Go away,” Andrew says to Roland without looking at him through the darkness building around him and his voice comes out deep and raspy, as if his throat is raw. And suddenly he can’t be inside of this room anymore, so he walks to the back door. “Don’t follow me.”

The air is cool outside, much cooler than the air inside that’s sticky and thick from the crowd of dancing people and it’s so, so quiet outside. Andrew’s lighter clicks loud in the silence of the dark alley, the cherry of his cigarette is bright, it glows red like a little sun and Andrew inhales deeply. He buries his free hand in his hair, not to tug — never to tug — but just to hold himself. 

He understands what just happened, he really does but that doesn’t mean that he wants to. No, he doesn’t want to understand, not at all actually, and he doesn’t want to think of it. He also doesn’t want to keep thinking about Neil with his lies and lies and unexpected truths and his eyes that feel like they’re burning right into his very soul. 

He takes another drag of his cigarette, and another one after that before he throws it away and lights a new one. The words Neil had said to him are wandering around in his head like words said in a cave that echo around, get thrown from one wall to the next before they’re too quiet to hear. 

Andrew still doesn’t know what to make of Neil’s words, what to make of the fact that he’s running from someone who sits in jail at this point in time, someone that will kill Neil if Neil gets found but he supposes that he doesn’t have to make a lot out of them; what matters is that Andrew said he’d protect Neil, he promised to do so, and Andrew will, he didn’t lie about that. He will keep his promise and let himself be killed before he breaks this promise. 

Another two cigarettes join the one on the floor before Andrew has collected himself, before his head is pleasantly quiet again, and he enters the club through the break room again. He doesn’t say anything to Roland as he takes the full tray waiting for him at the bar. The others are sitting in silence at the table when he arrives and drops them, and Neil almost looks like he’s going to comment on Andrew’s absence but doesn’t. 

At ten ‘til midnight, the last call for drinks goes out and Aaron and Nicky get a final round before they leave. Andrew has to help Kevin out and Neil keeps Nicky from wheeling off the sidewalk and into the road while Aaron somewhat walks in a straight line in front of them. After his cousin, brother and Kevin are safely in the car, Neil offers to drive but Andrew meant it when he said he didn’t trust Neil, and that means that he will not drive Andrew’s car — not when everyone Andrew protects is inside. 

Aaron’s phone rings as Andrew pulls into the driveway of the house roughly seven minutes later and Andrew turns the key in the ignition but doesn’t make a move to get out. He watches through the rear view mirror as Aaron fumbles through his pockets in search for his phone before he finds it and makes a face at whoever is calling — and that can only mean that it’s not his little cheerleader. 

“Coach,” he says after answering and Andrew pulls out his pack of cigarettes again. “Do you know what time it is? What? Wait, what? You’re lying. I don’t believe you!” And then he jerks his phone away from his ear and holds it out to Andrew. 

Andrew decides that Wymack can wait for a little and takes the time to light a cigarette before he takes the phone and takes it. He cradles it between his ear and shoulder as he puts the pack away again. 

“What do you want?” he asks then. 

“It’s Seth,” Wymack says on the other line and then makes a sound like a sigh. “He overdosed.”

That doesn’t exactly sound like something he hasn’t heard before, but he thinks back to Allison checking his pockets and adds up the timing with the strange tone of Wymack’s voice. “Overdosed like how?”

Wymack sighs again. “Listen, I’m no professional here. I got a call from the lot working at Bacchus that he was found face-down in their bathroom.” He swears once. “Seth drowned in his own puke.” 

“Again?” Nicky asks incredulously from the backseat. “That stupid bastard.”

“Never again,” Andrew says over his shoulder and takes a drag of his cigarette. “He’s dead.” 

There is a second of silence in the car, and on the other side of the phone there’s the sound of something rustling and clinking. “Fucking shit. The cops and press will be swarming this place as soon as they catch wind of it.” Someone speaks on Wymack’s side, too soft for Andrew to understand. “Are you coming back tonight?” 

Nicky grabs Andrew’s shoulder to give him a shake and Andrew throws his hand off. “No. What?” 

“No, not a good idea” Andrew says into the phone. Driving home now, with all of them having taken cracker dust minus Neil would paint a worse picture than the Foxes already do on their own. Even more so if cops are going to be around campus. They would take one look at Andrew, notice that he’s not on his medication but on other drugs and lock him up. “I’ll call you when we’re back in town.” 

“Shit, shit. No way.” 

“Alright,” Wymack says. “Be careful, you crazy assholes.” 

“Who overdosed?” Neil asks. 

“Seth.” Andrew snaps his brothers phone shut and taps it against his thigh. “Someone found him face-down in the bathroom at Bacchus where he drowned in his own puke,” he says, repeating what Wymack told him. “It’s exactly how I warned him he was going to clock out, not that he ever listened to me.” 

Neil blinks at him with wide eyes. “Seth overdosed?” 

“Keep up with the conversation,” Andrew tells him. For someone smart enough to stay under the Moriyamas radar and on the run for years without getting caught, Neil is acting incredibly dense, Andrew thinks. 

“I thought he was on something, but I never saw him using,” Neil says. 

“He cleared most of it out of his system years ago,” Andrew says and answers Neil’s unspoken question. “Only thing he’s on these days is antidepressants.” He levels Neil with a look. “Curious.” 

“I might be sick,” Nicky says and Neil looks at him and then at Aaron in surprise before he looks at Andrew again. “Are we going back?” 

“When they’re all drunk and cracker high and I’m off my meds?” Andrew asks and voices his thought process from a few seconds ago, when he was still on the phone with Wymack. “I’ll be back in jail before you can say ‘threat to society’. We’ll wait until morning.” 

And then he leaves the car because his brother and cousin are taking Seth’s death surprisingly hard for people who could never stand him and fought him at every chance they got. Kevin mumbles something about their line-up and Andrew has the urge to go back into the driver's seat and kick him out of the car in a repeat of their last time in Columbia. 

He stops in front of the front door after opening it, though, and pulls out his key chain. There’s a key for this house, two for his car, one for the dorm and another one that mirrors the house key. It’s a copy, another key that will fit into the lock and open the door just like the original does. He removes that one, and keeps it in his hand as he turns around and meets Neil’s blank eyes. 

“That’s interesting,” Andrew says and points his cigarette at Neil’s face. “That apathy doesn’t bode well for your sanity.” 

“I don’t understand suicide,” Neil says. “Staying alive has always been so important that I can’t imagine actively trying to die.” 

Andrew can, but that’s not a topic for now, or ever, so he doesn’t say it. But Neil sounds like he actually doesn’t know that Seth didn’t do it, that he didn’t choose to die today and didn’t go voluntarily. “He wasn’t,” Andrew says to him and then goes into the hallway without bothering with the lights and hears Neil follow him. “He wanted a way out for a little while,” he explains, “a few hours where he didn’t have to think or feel. Problem was he picked an out that’s easy to die on. That’s his fault.” 

“Is that why you drink?” Neil asks. “You don’t want to feel?” 

That question is so stupid that Andrew can’t help but turn to face Neil, who almost runs into him. Andrew dugs his fingertip into the hollow of Neil’s throat in warning and ignores the warmth that spreads over his body starting from the same fingertip. He had assumed that it was obvious that the alcohol and cracker dust were there to keep his withdrawals at arms length during nights in Columbia, that they helped to clear his head more than anything and that Andrew doesn’t feel when he’s off his medication, but maybe not for everyone. 

“I don’t feel for anyone or anything,” Andrew says, and it’s the truth. A truth he will completely come back to once he’s sober again. “Don’t forget that.” 

“So Kevin’s just a hobby for you?” 

“Seth didn’t kill himself,” Andrew says instead of answering Neil’s pointless question. It’s clear to him, the fact that this is not something Seth did voluntarily, especially after what they saw in the hallway and considering the time that had passed between the talkshow and Seth’s death — which is less than a day. And definitely not a coincidence. “He couldn’t have.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Seth only takes his pills when he and Allison are on the outs,” Andrew says and lets Neil take his cigarette. “When they’re together she’s enough to hold him up. She went with him tonight, so she would have made sure he left his pills at home. She knows he likes chasing them with drinks.” 

“She checked him. I saw her.” 

“So did I,” Andrew says and sees it happening again, sees Allison find nothing more than a lighter and a piece of gum that she labels as trash before throwing it over her shoulder. 

“If he didn’t have his pills on him, how did he overdose?” 

“Not by choice,” Andrew says and vocalizes his thoughts. “My theory says Riko won this round.” 

Neil stares at him for a second, stares at him as if he thinks Andrew has lost his mind. Welcome to the family, Neil. “You don’t really think Riko did this.” 

Oh, Andrew absolutely does, but he doesn’t think Riko did it personally. No, someone like Riko Moriyama appearing so far away from his home, from his nest, would’ve drawn too much attention for him to do it without anyone noticing. But Andrew doesn’t doubt for a moment that this is his doing, his twisted revenge for the humiliation he faced this morning in front of thousands of people. 

“I think the timing’s too convenient for it to be an accident,” Andrew says. “Riko broke Kevin’s hand for being better. He crossed districts because Kevin picked up a racquet again and got back on the court. What do you think he’s willing to do to you for calling him useless on national TV?” 

The team might say that Andrew is crazy, and maybe they’re right, but Riko Moriyama is another slice of crazy, a bigger one. A solid psychopath, maybe. 

“You said our greatest strength is in our small size,” Andrew recalls. “How strong do you feel now that you’ve been bumped to our starting line? You think you and Kevin are ready to carry us to championships?” 

“And you call me paranoid,” Neil says quietly, almost too quiet for Andrew to hear. 

“They were supposed to stay on campus tonight,” Andrew says. “Renee stopped by after you left and asked how soon we could expect RIko to respond. Kevin said we would hear back tonight. Pity you didn’t see the busybodies panic when they realized you weren’t at the dorm anymore. I told them you’d be back at nine, so they built their plans around you.” 

Neil takes a deep breath and his eyes, so so blue even now in the darkness, go wide. “I don’t believe you.” 

“I can’t prove it, but you know I’m right.” 

“If you are, then what?” Neil asks. “I’m willing to gamble with my life. I won’t gamble with theirs. They don’t deserve that.” 

“You don’t have to,” Andrew says because it’s the truth. “I do, and I say the odds are good.” The Foxes are famous for having terrible seasons, after all. One death might be a believable tragedy but two would bring them below the bare minimum number of requisite players to complete and _that_ would go against Coach Moriyama’s plan to have Kevin and Riko face off. Which means that Riko cannot risk disqualifying them, and that no one else will die because of him. 

He says that much to Neil and then hooks his fingers into the collar of Neil’s shirt when he stays quiet. Tugs enough that Neil should be able to feel it. “I know what I’m doing,” Andrew says. “I knew what I was agreeing to when I took Kevin’s side. I knew what it could cost us and how far I’d have to go. Understand?” Then he adds, more quiet, “You aren’t going anywhere. You’re staying here.” 

It’s dark around them still without any of the lights turned on but even now Andrew feels like he can see the faint freckles on Neil’s face, over the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones like the stars in the sky. 

Andrew doesn’t phrase it as a question because it isn’t one. He’s telling Neil that he will stay exactly where he is right now, and that Andrew will protect him like he is doing with Kevin, too. He waits the few seconds it takes for Neil to understand and nod before he reaches for Neil’s hand to take his cigarette back. Andrew puts it back between his lips and puts the copy of the house key into his palm. 

“Get some sleep,” Andrew tells him and then looks into his blue eyes again, lets the itch sit under his skin and grow until the urge to _do something_ is almost too big to ignore. “We’re going home tomorrow. We’ll figure this out then.” 

And then he goes around Neil and to the front door. There is not even a little bit of sympathy or comfort for the others inside of him as he watches them grieve Seth’s unexpected death. But, Andrew thinks as the hears Neil walk down the hall behind him and keeps his eyes on the others, he is going to keep watch on them from his place in the doorway until they’re okay enough to go inside. 

Because Andrew is keeping his promises, just like he always has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and with this chapter, book one is done — thank god! 
> 
> but please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to book two and please enjoy reading, lmao! 
> 
> also, a small warning for higgins in this chapter.

When they arrive back on campus on Wednesday afternoon, the school’s appearance is enough to break through the cloud in Andrew’s head and enough to make a smile grow on his face. He pushes the button for his window to open, lets the cool air from outside stream in and brush over his heated skin, lets it slip through his clothes like water and then closes it again. Then he repeats the process again and again, the slight squeaks of the machinery working highly amusing to him in the otherwise quiet car. 

Palmetto State University had been covered in orange and white streamers to celebrate the start of the school year and over the weekend, someone had replaced the white ribbons with black ones. 

It’s still an eyesore in Andrew’s opinion, not that anyone would ask, but it’s an improvement from the blinding white — even if it gives the impression that the campus is in mourning. 

Rock music blares to life from the radio for all but a second, temporarily filling the utter silence in the car and making Andrew stop playing with the window to listen to the familiar tunes, before it vanishes as quickly as it had been turned on. Andrew manages to drag his eyes away from the changed layout of the campus and drums his fingers on his knee, suddenly bored with the controls of the window, and looks at the front. 

Nicky lets his hand fall away from the dashboard with a quiet curse, and then the driver’s seat gets shoved by Aaron which is enough to make the whole car shake like a ship riding the oceans mad surface. Nicky reaches for the radio again, likely a try to waste time by listening to some music, and Kevin shoves his hand away. 

“It’s fine,” he says, and that is a line Andrew has heard before, just not from Kevin. He swiftly ignores the human heat radiator next to him, ignores the warmth pooling into his chest and drums his fingers faster, more erratic. “Let it go.” 

“I don’t want to do this,” Nicky says and he sounds miserable when he does. 

Andrew honestly doesn’t understand why Kevin, Aaron and Nicky acting as if Seth had been someone they had been close friends with when Kevin used to throw punches with him more than not, when Nicky used to hear more slurs than actual words aimed at him from Seth. But then again, Andrew supposes he doesn’t really understand death anyway. 

It’s unpleasant, but not anything that isn’t familiar to him like his own reflection every time he looks into the mirror. Familiar like the weight of his knives against his skin underneath the armbands covering his forearms. Familiar like the invisible handcuffs around his wrists, familiar like the matching ones around the wrist of every person he has made promises to. 

The sun is covered by thin clouds when Andrew looks outside again and focuses on the outside rushing by as they make their way to the stadium rather than his own picture blinking back at him or Neil sitting next to him. It doesn’t hurt to look at it like this, hidden behind faint grey, but there are still spots dancing in his vision when he looks away and follows the shapes the weak shadows of cars and trees throw behind them. He follows the shadows of a group of people and follows the way the shapes twist and turn, get longer and grow into something inhumane when they move. 

Andrew runs the tip of his thumb over his jaw, the exact spot Matt had been aiming for on Sunday morning when the team got together to grieve their loss at Seth’s funeral. It was an overreaction if Andrew has ever seen one, all he did say was that everyone had been looking way to gloomy for the loss of someone that had been a waste of space for most of them anyway. 

Which, Andrew thinks as orange glints at the edge of his peripheral vision and he turns his head to watch the stadium get bigger and bigger, wasn’t a lie. His mind, never forgetting, always going back to moments long passed and replaying them as if someone presses on repeat again and again, is full of Seth saying a slur here and there, throwing punches at Kevin. A waste of space, like he’d said, really. 

Wymack, always one to spoil the fun, had forcibly separated the team after that. A shame, really, because Andrew wanted to see if Matt was reckless enough to try his luck but not unexpected from their Coach. The upperclassmen had moved in with Abby, while Andrew and his group (minus Neil, who Wymack had taken with him) were banned to the dorm. 

It had given Andrew enough space and quiet, especially when he walked up the stairs in the hallway that leads to the door keeping everyone away from the roof that he’d managed to manipulate enough with his knife to open for him with a small twist, to think about Saturday. 

Yes, there are numerous handcuffs named after the people he made promises with around his wrists, and now there is a new addition with Neil’s name on it. Andrew will protect Neil from his past if Neil helps him keep Kevin at Palmetto State, and even if Neil had sounded like it was impossible for him to be safe from his past, Andrew doesn’t break promises and sees them through to the end (even if the other person doesn’t do the same). 

No, Andrew won’t let this one be the first promise he breaks, no matter how deep he has to twist his knives to hold it. Not even if his body’s reaction to Neil, the warm feeling in his gut that claws up all the way to his chest and climbs to the inside of his ribcage, feels like he swallowed the sun and is getting burned from the inside out. 

The stadium is still giant and painted in a nauseating mix of orange and white when Nicky pulls up to the curb and lets the engine run as Kevin, Neil and Aaron get out of the car. Andrew can see the black ribbons attached to the lamp posts in the parking lot and the gates and looking at them awakens the urge to eat black licorice inside of him. 

The pictures of Seth taped to the door leading to the Foxes’ entrance are too far away for Andrew to make out but he is sure that they’re some of the ugliest things he’ll ever see. Considering how he has to look into Kevin’s horrifying face every day, that should say a lot. 

Nicky pulls away as soon as they’re all out of the car and starts driving into the direction of the Reddin Medical Center for Andrew’s weekly session with Bee. The car ride is completely silent and Andrew waits about five minutes (or more like one and a half but who’s counting?) for his cousin to say something and when he doesn’t, and continues his gloomy silence, Andrew goes back to letting the squeaky window roll up and down. 

He gets bored with that when they’re about halfway there and pulls his seatbelt away from his chest to flop down sideways and sprawl out on the backseat. He pulls the seatbelt of the seat behind the driver’s seat, stretches it until his knuckles almost risk brushing Nicky’s headrest and then lets it snap back. And then he repeats that, once, twice, ten times until the car stops. 

Andrew sits up again and gets out of the car before Nicky has the time to unbuckle his seatbelt and slams the door shut behind him with enough force to let the car rock for a second. Nicky’s shocked squawk at that is enough to make Andrew throw a wave, fingers wiggling and a wide grin on his face, over his shoulder before he enters the building. 

“Knock knock,” he says when he enters Bee’s office and she smiles at him from where she’s balancing two steaming cups next to her table. 

“Andrew,” she says and offers him a small smile. She walks to the sofa and puts both cups on the table before sitting down on her chair and folding her hands. “Hello.”

“What?” 

“What?” 

“No, Bee.” Andrew lets himself fall onto the sofa in his usual spot and watches two of the pillows bounce onto the floor, kicking at one as it hits the ground. “That is not how knock-knock jokes work, I thought we already talked about this?” 

Bee smiles at him over her cup, calm and warm and it brushes over his soul like a feather. Andrew finds that he doesn’t mind. “Did we?” 

“Of course we did.” Andrew frowns, as if he’s concerned, but he supposes the ever present smile on his face gives him away. “Did you forget already? Are you getting old, Bee?” He taps one finger against the arm rest. “Are you sick, is that it? You’re so silly! You should really not be here and rest at home.” 

“I’m quite alright, thank you,” Bee says. She takes a sip of her tea before she puts down her cup, the clink of the porcelain against the wood of the table loud in the quiet room. “How are you, though?” 

“Me?” Andrew looks behind himself as if she means someone else and then points at himself and smiles. “Oh, I’m perfectly fine, don’t you see?” He taps a finger against his smiling mouth. 

“I see, and I’m glad considering all that has happened over the weekend.” Bee swallows. “How is everyone else doing?” 

“Is this what we’re doing from now on, talking about the others? You know how much attention I need, Bee,” Andrew says and then shrugs. “Life isn’t fair, now is it? We all know this and it’s why Wymack recruited us, right? It doesn’t care what we want, not that I actually do want something, and it fights us with everything we’ve got.” 

His forearms give a little twinge at that, phantom pain that travels all the way to Andrew’s erratic and cloudy thoughts and is almost enough to break through them before it gets carried away like a piece of paper in the ocean. 

He changes the topic when he realizes Bee is about to talk about Seth, because the last thing he needs after conversations on conversations about him is another one. Really, he wasn’t all that great, so why is everyone pretending that he was now that he’s dead? 

“Remember the open book? You do, don’t you? I knew you would.” Andrew takes a sip from his hot chocolate, lets the sugary warmth run down his throat. He lifts his right arm to wave it around, as if the metaphorical handcuffs make noise when he does. “I have one more.” 

Bee acknowledges that with a simple nod and then asks, “Have you managed to read a chapter? I find that asking for help does wonders sometimes.”

“Oh, but Bee,” Andrew says and takes his cup between his hands. He lets the temperature of it warm his fingertips, cool from the air conditioning in the building. The smile he throws at Bee is wide and fake; he is an orchestra with his medication as the chief conductor, raising its hand to signal the start of the music piece every morning after he swallows his pill and yanking his emotions to the left and right, making the music faster, louder. “It would be like asking for heads or tails before throwing a coin into the air that never comes down again to tell you if you win or lose. One that keeps spinning in the air until it’s forcibly stopped.” 

*

When Andrew and Nicky make it back to the stadium after Andrew’s appointment, everyone is gathered in the foyer and looking up when they join them. Dan immediately goes back to doing stretches and Matt’s expression tightening is enough to spark amusement deep inside of Andrew again. It’s not like Andrew’s said anything that wasn’t true on Sunday. 

Renee is the only one that sends them a smile and a friendly, if quiet, hello. 

“Hi Renee,” Andrew says and tilts his head to the side. “Are you moving back into the dorm yet?” 

“Tonight,” Renee says. “We packed Matt’s truck this morning.” 

Andrew hums instead of answering and goes on into the locker room to change. He can hear his cousin talking to the others and lets his hums go louder as Wymack says something to them to drown out the noise. 

It lasts until the door to the men’s changing room gets kicked open, and it’s a number too violent for Nicky to have done it, so Andrew turns around with big eyes when Wymack sends a glare at him. “Andrew Joseph Minyard, what the flying fuck have you done this time?” 

Andrew honestly cannot remember doing anything that would call for a glare or the usage of his full name, so he just throws up his hands in a play of innocence. “It wasn’t me, it was the one-armed man!” 

“Get out here!” Wymack yells back at him and then the door swings closed with a loud slam. The door frame creaks when Andrew opens it back up and goes back into the foyer, already changed into his uniform. Wymack points the phone at him like someone else would do with a weapon and says, “The police are on the phone for you.” Something inside of Andrew stills at that for a second. “You’d better come clean with me before I get the unabridged version from them.” 

“It wasn’t me,” Andrew says. All he’d done is give Neil dust and Wymack knows about that, but so do the rest of the Foxes — and Andrew is certain that if the police had caught wind of that, he would not be standing here right now. “Ask my doppelganger?” 

Wymack scowls at him at that and turns the microphone back on to put the phone to his ear. “What seems to be the problem, Officer..” He waits for a name and then continues, “Higgins, you say?” 

White noise fills the glittery mess in Andrew’s head and it’s enough to stop him from breathing. And then something hot, something ugly, rears his head and he blinks as the feeling grows and stays. 

“Oh,” he says. “No, Coach.” 

Wymack waves at him to be quiet but Andrew reaches out to grab his wrist, because this is something Wymack really, really doesn’t need to know or stick his nose into, and wretches the phone out of his grasp. Before he has a chance to enter the locker room again, though, Wymack catches his jersey. Andrew makes no move to wiggle free and looks down at the phone, the ugly feeling inside of him running through his veins like hot lava. “Don’t make him wait all day.” 

Andrew turns, and it’s not enough to break free but enough that it puts his brother, the person that looks like a walking reflection of Andrew in all the ways he isn’t, in his sight. Aaron, stopped mid-stretch, stares back and him. 

The name Higgins is familiar to both of them, it’s the person that is responsible for Aaron knowing about Andrew’s existence, the person responsible for one mess happening after another after that; like one domino piece falling and breaking down the entire construction. 

Andrew throws both of his hands up in a shrug, and puts the phone to his ear because he has absolutely no idea what could be wanted of him. 

“Pig Higgins, is that you?” Andrew asks. 

There is rustling on the other side of the line and then, “Hello Andrew.” 

“Oh, it is.” 

“Are you surprised by my call?” 

“Yes,” Andrew says and tightens his grip around the phone with enough force that he’s almost expecting it to shatter in his hand. “I’m surprised. Did you forget that I don’t like surprises?” 

“Of course not,” Higgins says and then clears his throat. The sound makes Andrew want to break something. “How have you been?” 

“What?” Andrew asks as if he didn’t hear the other man. “No, don’t stall. You wouldn’t hunt me down after all this time just to chat, so what do you want?” 

Higgins takes a deep breath and sighs. Andrew can perfectly imagine him sitting in his office at the station, stacks of papers all over his table, one of the white cable phones cops seem to have on his desk. Maybe a white mug half filled with coffee that has gone cold. “Children’s Services are opening an investigation on Richa—” 

That’s all Andrew needs to hear, a half mutter of a name he didn’t want to hear ever again, and he interrupts with a “No” before hanging up again. Mentioning someone like dear his former foster father, someone like Richard Spear, is like stepping into a minefield without any directions and eyes covered by a blindfold. And Andrew doesn’t feel like giving anyone a map and saying “try”. Not again, that is. 

The phone starts ringing again almost immediately. The other Foxes stare openly at Andrew, their stretches completely forgotten, and Wymack doesn’t order them back to business. Matt sits down on one of the benches and the movement is enough to have Andrew yank at his jersey until he lets go. 

He puts space between himself and his Coach as fast as he can. There is absolutely no need for Wymack to possibly hear anything Higgins is about to say to him, now is there? He leans against the wall instead, claps his free hand over his ear as if his teammates are making an incredible amount of noise, and answers the phone again. 

“What?” 

“Andrew, did you hang up on me?” 

“No, I didn’t hang up on you,” he says, and it’s not a lie, really. His finger slipped. He was sweaty from shortening the distance between the car and the stadium, and from changing. It’s totally something that happens. “I wouldn’t do that.” 

“Are you ready to listen now?” 

“I—no.” Andrew narrows his eyes at nothing in particular. “Shut up,” he says, and then hangs up again. 

He takes a breath, and it feels like knives are lodged in his esophagus and rip him open on the way down, and then the phone rings again because Higgins is persistent and annoying. Andrew lets it ring five times and lets out an explosive sigh, letting out all the air he had inhaled, as he answers again (he knows Higgins would call all day if necessary, and there’s only so much Andrew can do before Wymack would involve himself, which is not something anyone needs). 

“Talk to me,” Andrew says and leans more of his weight against the wall. His leg starts tapping up and down, his body full of energy from his medication and in need to let it out somehow. 

“As I’ve tried to say earlier,” Higgins starts and then clears his throat. There's the sound of something being lifted, then a quiet swallow. The clunk of a mug against wood. “Children’s Services are opening an investigation on Richard Spear. That name should still be familiar to you, no?” He waits as if he expects Andrew to confirm that, but Andrew doesn’t say anything, the anger inside of him mixes with the glittery cloud his medicine puts over his thoughts like a film, it makes him feel like he’s about to burst like a volcano and spew hot lava everywhere and destroy everything in his wake. 

“We’ve reached word that someone has turned to the authorities about very, very questionable behaviors and handlings that we take extremely serious,” Higgins says, slowly. “I cannot name anyone else, seeing as they’re protected by the law and the oath we take, but this sort of abuse is not something we can let sit and grow cold, but something we, and the Children’s Services need to investigate immediately to stop this from happening ever again, if possible.” 

Andrew’s smile is gone by the time Higgins is done and takes another sip from whatever he has standing on his table. He half hopes that it’s poison and eating away at the Officer’s organs slowly, but he knows he’s not that lucky. Someone like him never is. He looks away from his brother and points his gaze at the ceiling instead, counts the spiderwebs and dust balls attached to it (three spiderwebs, five small dust balls). 

“Go back,” Andrew says, eventually, and it feels like dragging something sharp up his throat. “Who complained?” 

“I can’t tell you the name or information from someone protected by—” 

“Oh, Pig, don’t give me the runaround,” Andrew interrupts. “I know where you work, you see. I know who you work with.” Andrew stills. If someone had complained, if someone had the guts to complain, to the authorities no less, it can logically only mean one thing, especially if Children’s Services are involved in this investigation and the thought is nauseating. “That means there’s a child in her house.” Or one has been after Andrew. “She isn’t supposed to—” 

“Andrew,” Higgins interrupts and then takes a quiet breath, as if he’s steeling himself for something and then he drops the other shoe and asks, “Would you be willing to help us in this investigation? I know we have given the impression that we let you—” 

“What?” Andrew asks as if he didn’t hear the other man, because he really doesn’t want to hear how that sentence could’ve ended. “No. Don’t ask me that.” 

“Why—”

“I said don’t.” Andrew clenches his teeth, taps his foot faster and faster in a weak imitation of his racing thoughts. “Leave me alone. Hey,” he says then, a little louder as Higgins tries to talk again, and it’s loud enough to drown out whatever he was about to add. “Call me again and I’ll kill you.” 

Andrew means it; he won’t hesitate to cut Higgins open from top to bottom and let him sink to the bottom of the ocean if he dares to call again — now, or ever. And he really doesn’t care about the fact that multiple people have heard him threaten a Police Officer, it’s not like they don’t think already that he’s insane. The phone stays silent this time and Andrew looks at it for a moment, to make sure Higgins got the hint to back off. 

And then there’s amusement again, sharp and sour at the same time, like a piece of candy without color that you bite into and have the urge to spit out again immediately. But Andrew can’t spit it out, he’s not allowed to fight this addiction of his, and the ridiculousness of this situation is enough for him not to fight the laughter that bubble up inside of him. He manages to put one hand over his eyes before he breaks out into them, though. 

“What’s so funny?” Nicky asks as he comes back out of the locker room. “What did I miss?” 

“Oh, nothing,” Andrew says, and waves his question away with a flick of his wrist and a wide grin. “No worries.”

Wymack doesn’t look like he believes him and looks from Aaron to Andrew. “Now what have you done?” 

Andrew spreads his fingers from where they’re still covering his eyes and peers between them at Wymack, a weak parody of a prison cell. “What makes you think this is my fault?” 

“I hope that’s a rhetorical question,” Wymack says and crosses his arms. “Why is the Oakland PD calling you?” 

That is none of Wymack’s business at all, so Andrew just says, “The pig and I go way back.” And then he adds, “He just wanted to catch up.” And it’s not a complete lie, since Higgins did ask how Andrew has been doing — even if it was just for show, to soften the blow of what he said after that. 

“You lie to my face one more time and we’re going to have a problem.” 

“It was mostly the truth.” Andrew drops his hand and then tosses the phone across the room with enough force that the back pops off when it hits the ground. The handset slides in one direction and the battery in another. “He worked with the Oakland PAL program,” he says. “Thought he could save at-risk kids by teaching them sports after school. Kind of like you, yes? Idealistic to the core.” 

“You left Oakland three years ago.” 

“Yes, yes,” Andrew says, as if he doesn’t know that. As if anything he has ever seen hasn’t left his mind, is imprisoned in it just like he’s a prisoner of the memories coming back when he least expects them. “I’m so flattered he remembers me, or something.” He waves his hand around, a lazy ‘what can you do’ meaning gesture and then turns to the door. He suddenly feels very tired, and combined with the anger still shimmering under his skin, he needs to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Wymack puts an arm in his path and Andrew almost walks right through it. “Where are you going?” 

“I’m leaving,” Andrew says, because it’s obvious. He points at the direction of the exit. “Didn’t I say I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks, even though he knows he did. “Maybe I mumbled.” 

“We’ve got practice,” Dan says as if that, of all things, is going to change his mind. “We have a game on Friday.” 

“You have Joan of Exy over there. Make do without me.”

“Cut the shit, Andrew,” Wymack says and narrows his eyes in a half glare. “What is really going on here?”

Andrew doesn’t think that he will tell Wymack anytime soon, so he puts one of his hands to his forehead. He is a little warm to the touch. It could come from his hands, cooler than usual, or maybe Bee really was sick and got him sick too! Silly of her. 

“I think I’m coming down with something. Cough, cough,” Andrew says. “Best I leave before I infect your team. There’s so little of them left. You can’t stand to lose anyone else.” 

“Knock it off,” Kevin, of all people, says and twists his mouth into a hard line of impatience. “You can’t leave.” 

And here it is again. Kevin’s endless blabber of what Andrew can and cannot do, adding onto the list of endless demands and orders he aims at Andrew as if Andrew is his fucking dog and not someone capable of taking off Kevin’s fingers one by one. It’s a little bit irritating, really. 

“I can’t, Kevin?” he asks and turns to Kevin with another smile pulling on his lips, but this one feels meaner, more wicked and filled with the poison running through his veins. “I’ll show you what I can’t do. Try and put me on your court today and I’ll take myself off it permanently. Fuck your practice,” he says as his lips twist more, “your line-up, and your stupid fucking game.” 

“That’s enough. We don’t have time for your tantrums.” 

Oh, and Kevin does know some stuff about tantrums, doesn’t he? Seeing as he is throwing them every other day for every little, small issue. But he really, really doesn’t know how a tantrum looks like when Andrew is the one throwing it, and so Andrew thinks ‘I’ll show you a tantrum’ before twisting to the side and punching the wall. The stone is hard, and combined with the force in which Andrew had swung his fist, it’s enough to split the skin along his knuckles — the same skin that didn’t have time to heal after Andrew had broken the window. 

He sees Kevin take a step forward out of the corner of his eyes and his fingers twitch with the urge to pull free one of his knives, but then Wymack steps in and catches Andrew’s arm to haul him away from the wall. 

Andrew allows his Coach to pull him, even if the sudden touch on his skin makes him want to reach for his knives and lash out anyway, and doesn’t look away from Kevin. Only when Kevin is the first to look away does Andrew try to pull free of Wymack’s grip. 

“Cough, cough, Coach,” Andrew says again when Wymack doesn’t release him. Their Coach seems awfully keen on not only Andrew coming down with something, but also him making everyone else sick and Andrew doesn’t think that they can play their precious Exy on Friday, then. “I’m leaving now.” 

“Coach, let him go,” Aaron says, and the fact that his brother helps him, no matter how small the help is, is almost enough to surprise Andrew. But the anger inside of him is still too hot, the wound too fresh to heal. “Please.” 

A smile finds its way onto Andrew’s face when Wymack drops his hand and lets Andrew go. “You and I are going to have a very long talk later, Andrew.” 

No, Andrew doesn’t think that they will, but he still says “Sure”, which is a bright and blatant lie before he leaves. He walks to the Fox Tower, lets the fresh air sink under his clothes and cool his overheated skin, lets the sounds of birds chirping on the trees take his mind off the whirlwind raging inside of him for all but a moment. 

It doesn’t take long for Andrew to reach their dorm, and he picks the lock to grab his cigarettes before walking up the stairs in the hallway, ignoring the sign on the door that says entrance to the roof isn’t allowed and wretches the door open. 

The air is cooler up here, the wind harsher, but it all pales in comparison to the ice now making its way through Andrew’s veins as he pulls out a cigarette and lights it. He walks to the ledge and looks down, amusement sparking for a second when his pulse stumbles at the sight the campus makes from so far up. 

He smokes through one cigarette and another one and another one, throws them into the wind, watches as they get carried away like the acrid smoke does and remembers a ridiculous wish from a young boy, the wish to be weightless and to be carried to another place like leaves in a storm do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short-ish chapter, but there’s some renee and andrew talking to each other — please enjoy reading!

Andrew stays on the roof until the time on his phone signals the end of the team’s practice and then eventually makes his way down. He takes the stairs and sprints them down; there’s still way too much energy inside of him, even after he has been on the roof and stared down at people walking by and looking like ants, his heartbeat so fast that he’d been able to feel it in his fingertips. 

The energy inside of him swings to the left and right, it stretches through his whole body like a chunk of bubble gum that has been thrown onto the ground and that someone has stepped in, like a chunk of bubble gum that glues itself to shoe soles and grows before it gets stuck on the ground again. 

It makes him feel restless, more than Andrew does anyway during the days until he goes to bed in the evenings, it makes him feel like there’s electricity wandering up and down under his skin, like the simplest of things can set him off and make him strike like lightning. The conversation with Higgins has left him utterly off balance, and Andrew is absolutely not a fan of feeling like this.

He pushes the doors open when he arrives all the way on the first floor and doesn’t waste his time with catching his breath, not that he’d need to when he’s on his medications. There’s an open spot on the parking lot, between a green and a silver car, and Andrew stops before it. Taps his foot on the ground. Heaves a sigh and lets himself fall promptly onto his ass to wait. 

The empty spot gets filled by a car that looks like it’s going to fall apart at any minute long before Andrew can hear his own car turning into the parking lot and driving by where he sits to circle around the back for an empty spot. He crosses his legs, toes twitching up in his shoes in a failed attempt to be less riled up, puts his hands on his ankles and then turns his head to watch Kevin, Neil, Nicky and Aaron approach. 

Predictably, Kevin is the first one to open his mouth when he sees Andrew. “You shouldn’t be outside if you’re coming down with something.” Then he frowns to give his words the full effect, though all it does is put horrible wrinkles on his forehead. It also makes him appear even older than he acts sometimes, but Andrew isn’t telling him that now or anytime in the near future. 

“Such concern,” Andrew says and throws a grin at Kevin, looks him into the eyes and tries to communicate that he knows what Kevin is actually concerned about is his precious Exy. “Don’t cry, Kevin. It’s nothing a nap and some vitamin C can’t fix.” 

Nicky takes a step forward right as Kevin opens his mouth to say something else and crouches down in front of Andrew. “Hey,” he says, quietly, as if Andrew’s a wild animal — which he very much is not, but he doesn’t doubt that that is exactly what the upperclassmen think of him. Not that he cares much for that. “You good?” 

“You ask strange questions, Nicky.” 

“I’m concerned, is all.” And strangely enough, Nicky actually does sound concerned when he says it. 

“Sounds like your problem.” Andrew looks over Nicky’s shoulder, lets his eyes run over the others without really looking at them, and spares Neil a glance that’s shorter than a blink before he sees Matt’s truck turn into the parking lot, and then circle twice before he finds a spot large enough to fit his truck. “Oh, there we go, finally.” 

Andrew swats at Nicky’s face without actually making contact in a silent order to get out of the way, and Nicky stands up and stands to one side as Dan, Matt and Renee come closer. Andrew waits until they’re close enough to hear him without the effort of raising his voice more than necessary before he lifts his hand in greeting. 

“Renee, you made it!” he says and Renee smiles at him, like she always does, like there’s actually something to be happy about when she sees him. It’s odd. “Welcome back. I’m borrowing you. You don’t mind, do you?” He doesn’t wait for her to answer before he says, “I knew you wouldn’t.” 

Renee nods, easily accepting her changed schedule. “Do I need anything?” 

It probably sounds like a simple question to the others, but Andrew hears the double meaning in the soft spoken words, understands that she’s asking if she needs to bring any weapons for them, but that’s not what Andrew needs today. He needs to let his energy out, hard and fast, and toying with anything sharper than his mind isn’t anything he thinks he can handle right now. 

“I’ve already got it,” Andrew says, because everything for hand to hand is present, and hops to his feet before setting off across the parking lot and in the direction he knows his car is in — not that they actually need it. Renee falls into step with him a second later and they shorten the distance between them and the gym in ten minutes. 

Renee rushes forward and opens the door in silence to let him enter first and then follows him down into the basement and the room at the end of the hallway to the left that they always occupy. Andrew pushes the door open, still in silence, and goes in. 

Everything is still like they had left it before the break, which might be a little unorganized on the school’s side but Andrew really doesn’t care for it, not when it means that they can start sooner. There are simple blue mats on the floor, softer than the floor and soft enough to pillow a body that falls or is thrown, but not soft enough to be comfortable for a long time. The walls are a pale grey, Andrew knows this, but Renee turns the light on and the yellow shine of the light above them makes them appear a creamy beige instead. 

There are still some of the paper targets taped to the wall that Andrew and Renee had started to use before the break, some with holes in them starting from the outside and getting closer to the middle point, and some are carelessly laying on the floor. 

“Regular?” Renee asks softly before him and then drops to the floor to stretch her upper body forward and to make it able for her to touch her own toes. 

“Oh Renee,” Andrew says and smiles as he begins to stretch his own body, as he tries to make his muscles relax enough for him to warm them up. He would go like this, he has enough energy and rage shimmering under his skin to go right away, but Andrew honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he accidentally pulled a muscle and Kevin pulled out a powerpoint presentation in return. “You really do know me well, don’t you? It’s awful and I hate it so much, but you know this, right? I know you do.” 

Renee doesn’t say anything to that but Andrew can see her smile at the mat she’s sitting on and it makes amusement bubble up inside of him. 

Oh look, Andrew would like to say to the upperclassmen if he were anyone else and actually gave a damn about their opinions, your monstrous teammate made the saint smile. Quick, call the media to capture this impossible moment, to freeze it in a photograph so you can throw it into people’s faces when they don’t believe you. 

Andrew is reaching forward, folding his body in half to reach his toes and taps the mat, raw to the touch, with his fingertips when Renee asks, quietly, “What you said to her, you believe it, don’t you?” 

“What I said to who?” Andrew asks, even if he knows who she’s talking about, and then straightens up again. He makes a show of looking up at the ceiling, at the ceiling that is cleaner than the one in their stadium, and counts the spiderwebs that aren’t there before he snaps his fingers. “Oh, you mean Allison?” 

On Sunday before the funeral, and a few minutes before Matt had taken it upon himself to try to punch Andrew, body tight and fists clenched so hard the veins in his arms popped out, Andrew had let himself into the girls room. He had looked at Renee, had seen the darkness in her gaze that mirrors the one slumbering deep inside of him, and then at Allison and her swollen eyes. And then he had told them the same thing he had told Neil the night before. 

“Oh, I do. Say what you want about Riko Moriyama and the Ravens, but he personally doesn’t seem smart enough to me to not make this as obvious as possible, and the pieces fit together like the ones of a puzzle, right?” Renee straightens up again and cracks her knuckles and Andrew grins. “We should count ourselves lucky that it had been Seth, hm?” 

“Andrew,” Renee says, quiet and with an even quieter warning in her gentle tone. “Don’t say this.” 

“Why not? It’s not like Seth and I have made each other friendship bracelets.” Andrew laughs at the thought. Seth would’ve rather pushed Andrew’s head into the next toilet and flushed than do anything that might him seem gay or injure his fragile masculinity, like wearing a bracelet would. 

He spreads his hands and smiles. “Think about it, Renee,” Andrew says and on his nod, they start to circle each other. “This is a team with absolutely no concept of teamwork and the hierarchy gets determined through force. When summer practices had started a few weeks ago, Seth had been the one to start almost all the conflicts. Seth never hesitated to fight with Kevin or any of us. He didn’t work with us on the court and refused to deal with us off it, not that I would’ve had it any other way but I know it must’ve cost Kevin a night of sleep.” 

“You aren’t wrong, but—” 

“No buts, I’m not wrong and that’s it, isn’t it?” Andrew pulls his head to the side, suddenly bored with the circling and lets his grin grow into something ugly, something vicious and mean. “Almost makes me want to send Riko a ‘thank you’ card and that’s just hilarious.” 

His words have the wished effect on Renee; she narrows her eyes slightly and then throws out one fist quickly followed by the other. Andrew deflects them, swats them away like someone else would do with flies and punches. Renee sees it coming, which isn’t surprising seeing as she is way more experienced in this, and defends easily. 

They go back and forth like this for a little; they throw punches and kick out with enough force to bruise the other one. They deflect and dodge, roll out of the way. Andrew is fast when he’s on his medication, way faster than he would be without them, and he throws his fists out with enough force that he almost expects the air to whistle when he does. 

Renee almost manages to hit his shoulder and then asks, barely out of breath and with sweat building on her forehead. “Better?” 

Better? Andrew supposes that Renee thinks their sparring sessions are like physical therapy to him when all they do is help make him less like the human glow stick he feels like sometimes, filled with energy to the brim and poisonous enough that people avoid cracking them open. But the question, oddly enough, makes him think back to Higgins and the phone call and that makes him think of Children’s Services and the open investigation and Richard Spear—

Andrew manages to sweep Renee of her feet with one quick move. Her back hits the mat and Andrew follows her down before she can stand up again, puts his knee on her left arm before she can swing out (he knows how much more strength hits coming from Renee’s left fist have) and easily catches her right one and slams it onto the mat near her head. 

“I really, really don’t want to talk about this.” Andrew pulls her up and moves out of the way before she can bump into him and then they circle each other again. Renee throws a punch that’s perfectly aimed at Andrew’s forehead and he dodges. His arms hurt a little when he lifts them and he throws Renee a grin. “Ah, this is working! Excellent. A plus for effort for everyone involved.” 

Andrew remembers Cass writing a letter to Aaron (and doesn’t that name just burn on the way down like strong alcohol does), remembers her inviting Aaron over, even after everything Andrew had done to keep him away — from pretending he didn’t exist to writing him a letter that simply said ‘fuck you, go away’— after her husband and his dear foster father had not believed Andrew. 

Renee throws a punch and he catches her fist before lifting his foot and hitting the side of her thigh with a loud smack that echoes around the almost empty room. 

He remembers going off to juvie before Aaron had the chance to stay for the holidays at the Spear house, he remembers seeing his brother for the first time in a half-hour supervised session (he remembers looking at Aaron, at someone that looked like him and also not, at his hollow cheeks and the color that was missing from them, at the glassy look in his eyes; remembers thinking ‘oh’), remembers being brought home by Tilda and then finding out about the big secret Aaron had been trying to hide. 

His feet get kicked out from under him and Andrew hits the mat hard, and wastes a second to look at the empty ceiling and into the light before rolling to the side to avoid Renee’s fist and jumps back to his feet. 

He remembers making a deal with his brother, he remembers fastening the handcuffs around his own wrist before doing the same to Aaron, he remembers holding his word and orchestrating a car accident, he remembers the anger Aaron had aimed at him when Andrew had done nothing but hold his word like he said he would. Like he always does. 

Most of all, he remembers cursing Higgins (and Aaron, for a split second, for being curious and nosy enough to pick up the phone upstairs when the pig had called Tilda), and almost regretted meeting Aaron before telling himself that regrets are meaningless. 

And Andrew will always remember, because his memory is as reliable and devastatingly perfect as it has always been and will be for the foreseeable future. 

The sole of a foot hits him in his thigh, unexpected and hard, and Andrew blinks and stumbles back a step before he lets himself fall with amusement bubbling up from deep inside him again, from where it has been stuffed earlier. 

His ass hits the mat and Andrew doesn’t make any moves to get up again; he can feel his muscles burning pleasantly, and there’s a hum inside of his head. It’s not at all like it has been earlier and Andrew blinks, recognizes the kaleidoscope slipping into view again and lets it stay. It’s not like he’s allowed to fight this before May. 

Renee looks at him and then sits down opposite of him, but with enough space between them that she can comfortably straighten her legs. Pain pulls at the corner of her mouth at the movement, but her expression is otherwise as calm as always. 

Andrew breathes in and rolls his head from one side to the other, acknowledges the thin cloud in his head and the heaviness of his bones — both are signs that his medication is slowly but surely wearing off and Andrew knows the tiredness will hit him soon enough and chase away the rest of the smile sitting on his face. 

“Is it alright if I bring up our bet again?” Renee asks and brushes away a sweaty strand of pale hair. Lets the back of her hand run over her forehead and drops it into her lap afterwards to knead the place that Andrew had managed to kick earlier. “How did you know?” 

She means the one, and only one, Andrew had allowed himself to indulge in so far. The one they made on the day of their mandatory Reddin visits in pars, right after Wymack had called Renee’s name and then Neil’s and announced that they would go together. 

“Yes, you may,” Andrew says and then waves one hand around lazily. “You make him uncomfortable in the same way a predator would make their natural prey uncomfortable.” 

“But not fearful?” 

“Oh, not at all.” Andrew thinks back to Neil on Friday morning and doesn’t fight the grin that grows on his face. Tiny, scared Neil. Neil, who had said he was trying to stay in the shadows to avoid the Moriyamas recognizing him. Neil, who lies as easily as others breathes and does it without his pulse jumping. Neil, who has a tongue sharp enough to cut through glass. Neil, who had humiliated Riko Moriyama on live television. Neil, who makes this incredibly annoying itch appear under Andrew’s skin. Neil, with his blue, blue, blue eyes and sharp intelligence.

Neil, who had given Andrew his back on Saturday evening and put a handcuff engraved with his own name around his wrist and given Andrew the key.

“Do you want to know a secret?” Andrew asks through his grin and blinks slowly. “You do, right? You’re as curious as I am, aren’t you? Here it is: you and I have too much in common for him to feel comfortable around you.” 

Renee takes this without a comment and rolls her head back to look at the ceiling. They let the silence settle over them like a blanket before they eventually get up again and make their way back to Fox Tower, Renee with a slight limp and Andrew completely fine but feeling absolutely drained. 

The air is fresh outside, cooler than it has been earlier but not cool enough to call for a jacket or to be uncomfortable. The breeze doesn’t feel good on Andrew’s skin, especially not when it cools his sweaty armbands, but it doesn’t really feel bad either. Small groups of students and other athletes mingle around in the half dark, they get hit by the orange light of the street lamps that have been turned on while Andrew and Renee had been sparring, and throw impossibly long shadows around them. There are no stars visible when Andrew rolls his head back for a glance at the night sky. 

Andrew pulls out his pack of cigarettes when they walk by the elevator (Renee has too much respect for herself and for her discipline to use it when she’s limping, or some other thing she has said before) and shoves one of them behind his ear. His pack disappears again by the time they make it to the third floor and Renee quietly calls his name when he stops before his suite with his key held between his fingers. 

“If we’re too similar for Neil to feel uncomfortable, are you sure that you want to keep him as one of yours?” she asks and leans her shoulder against the wall. “Why not let me look after him?” 

There aren’t enough words to explain this, to explain that Neil knows of the Moriyama’s ways, that he’s known Kevin from when he was younger, that he makes Andrew feel like he touched an outlet with wet fingers and like something warm is growing under his ribcage, without giving away Neil’s little secrets but also Andrew’s. 

So he settles on the next best thing to say, “Oh, Renee.” And follows it up with a, “I wouldn’t wish Neil on anyone except a mortician.” 

Then he unlocks his door, wacks his fingers and goes inside. The door closes behind him with a quiet slam. Surprisingly, or not at all surprisingly, Nicky, Aaron and Kevin are all still up when he comes back and they all look up. 

“Can I help you?” Andrew asks them when no one says anything and then smacks his own cheeks lightly. “Is there something on my face? There isn’t, is there?” 

“Andrew—”

“Nicky, my favorite cousin! Hello.” 

“I—”

“You what?” 

“I told Neil,” Nicky says. Looks down at his hands. Turns and twists them. Looks up and then away again. “About the—”

Andrew knows where Nicky is going with this, and he doesn’t find anything else but amusement inside of him at the thought of Nicky talking about something long gone by, of him spilling secrets like a cup of coffee and letting the words dye papers where they’re impossible to get rid of again. 

“Oh, Nicky,” Andrew says. “You confuse me with someone who actually cares, no?” He waits a whole second, maybe a little shorter, for someone else to say anything. Then he blinks and then lets his hands and his smile drop when he loses interest. “This is getting weird now and I just remembered that I have somewhere else to be immediately.” 

He leaves them there and goes to the bathroom to grab some clothes for a quick shower. The hot water feels good on his burning muscles, it makes them relax in a way the sparring hasn’t been able to, and Andrew still feels like this when he makes his way back to the living room to sit on his desk and crack the window open to allow the acrid smoke of his cigarette to escape. 

He still feels like this, even as late evening turns into night, even as the sky goes from dark blue to black, even as the moon stands proudly on the sky and throws a white silver glow at everything below, even as his grin dies completely and the familiar emptiness rises within him and quietens his thoughts, even as Kevin eventually slaps his Exy magazine shut and signals him that it’s time to go to the stadium. 

And even as Andrew sees Neil again, sees his tired, red eyes and disheveled hair, and even as he recognizes the warm pull and push in his chest and ignores it, wills it to go away before he leads the way outside and drives them to the stadium.

Even as he sits in the stands and lets Kevin and Neil’s voices wash over him as he watches them, guards them — even then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for blood in this chapter — not much, but still. 
> 
> please enjoy reading!

It is only a little disappointing to Andrew that their second match of the season is an away game, even when the rest of the team seems to be grateful for it. 

He’s convinced that it would have been awfully entertaining (for him, not for anyone else because the rest of the team seems so keen on remembering and mourning Seth now that he’s gone), even more so because he knows the others would have acted awkward and distracted around each other. 

It’s such a shame that they’re not playing in Palmetto, really. 

Wymack signs them out of their late morning classes on Friday, since he wants them on the court by twelve-thirty so they can get on the road in time, but Andrew still has his morning class — not that he minds that — and because the universe and Andrew don’t like each other as far as they can throw each other, it just so happens that not only Nicky but also Kevin leave their suite at the same time that he does. 

Kevin starts talking about history halfway down the hallway and Andrew has the sudden urge to trip him and then blame it on the carpeted floor — it’s not like that hasn’t happened before, the great Kevin Day tripping over nothing and face planting on the floor (his fans would be scandalized, Andrew is positive of that)! But then he decides not to because it’s a game day and by some coincidence Kevin would stub his toe just right and throw another one of his tantrums. 

Balled fists, red faced and all that. Maybe he’d even stomp with his foot like some kind of bull? 

“Hey, Andrew,” Nicky says when Andrew punches the button for the elevator. Kevin walks by them and uses the stairs. “Can you hold my bag for a second?” 

Andrew looks down at the bag dangling from Nicky’s fingers. It’s brown, decorated with some rainbow pins, some pins Andrew doesn’t recognize and really doesn’t want to, and barely big enough to fit anything inside. 

He looks back up at his cousin after a second and smiles. “I can!” 

Then the elevator pings and Andrew walks in, followed by Nicky who still holds his bag like it disgusts him. 

There’s quiet music greeting them, something that is familiar to Andrew in a way that everything is that he’s heard or seen at least once before his mind caught it and sucked it up like a vacuum where it didn’t label it before storing it. Andrew starts humming the melody and presses the button for the first floor, looks at the red glow that surrounds the small 1 on it as the doors slide shut. 

“Well, will you?” Nicky asks. 

“What?” 

“Andrew.” 

“Nicky!” Andrew says and lets his lips curl up, bares his teeth in the imitation of a smile, amusement bubbling up inside of him. “Hello.” 

“Can you—” 

“Can I what?” 

“Hold my bag!” Nicky says, loud enough that his words echo in the small elevator and then holds out his bag again. Even shakes it a little from side to side as if Andrew is a dog and the bag is a treat. 

Which is awfully silly of him because Andrew isn’t a dog and Nicky knows this, Andrew is very certain that his cousin isn’t a complete airhead, but he takes the bag anyway as an idea begins to build inside of his head that he grasps with both hands before it has the chance to disappear again. “But of course! Why didn’t you just say so?” 

He takes the bag from Nicky then, stops it from smacking against his thigh with his free hands and quickly slips his fingers into one of the pockets on the side. The same pocket Andrew has seen Nicky stuff his keys in a few days ago. He finds them easily, fingertips bumping cool metal, and wraps his fingers around them as Nicky starts to type something on his phone. 

By the time his cousin is done with whatever he has been doing and looks up again to take his belongings back, Andrew’s hand is long gone from the pocket in the front, the right one, and instead in the pocket of his jeans. 

“Thanks,” Nicky says and Andrew doesn’t resist the urge to grin brightly back at him, he takes satisfaction in the fact that it seems to make Nicky extremely uncomfortable, until the elevator pings and the doors open and then he’s gone without another word, a familiar melody pushing into the foreground of his mind. 

Nicky’s keyring isn’t that interesting, Andrew finds out as the clock reads almost twelve and he’s back in the suite and sitting on his desk with a cigarette dangling from between his lips. It’s kind of sad to look at actually, with only three keys that hold Andrew’s attention; one of them is the key to unlock the suite, the other one matches the car key Andrew has on his.

And then there’s the key to the house in Columbia, identical to the key Andrew had pressed against the warm skin of Neil’s hand, his own skin feeling like it had been set on fire, and Andrew’s mind is like a carousel of blue eyes and blue and blue and blue and blue; of a feelings like needles under his skin, of electricity running alongside the blood flowing in his veins, a feeling hot enough to burn anyone who dares to stand close enough unfolding inside of him. 

Oh, Andrew really, really can’t wait until he’s sober and all of this disappears. Until it disappears like the dream it has to be, until it disappears like the acrid smoke from his cigarette does as he takes a drag and it gets blown away, turns invisible, like it had never been there at all. Like it had been a fragment of Andrew’s imagination all along. 

Then the doors open and Andrew’s thoughts seem to evaporate like condensation, there a second and then gone (but never forgotten, never never never), and his mouth curls up at the corners as Kevin walks in. 

His hair is blown in all directions, kind of as if he had been playing with an outlet one too many times and that’s just odd to Andrew because he is sure everyone is taught at a young age not to do exactly that. Silly, silly, Kevin. There’s also a frown on his face, one that makes his forehead wrinkle like cracked paint on the wall. One that gets deeper when he hears the sound of metal clanking against each other as Andrew swings the keyring around his fingers (and swigs and swings and swings). 

“Did you seriously lock Nicky out of the suite?” 

“Did I do what now?” 

“Lock Nicky out.” 

“I don’t recall doing that, no.” 

“Andrew,” Kevin says. 

“Kevin,” Andrew says, and then waves with the hand holding his cigarette. “Hello! Do you need anything? No? You look a little stressed,” he adds, because it’s the truth and because he can see that Kevin is starting to get annoyed. “Maybe you should sit down a little, calm down that blood pressure of yours, hm?” 

Andrew turns his head away, watches as the leaves of the trees near the entrance of the Fox Tower shake in the slight breeze, watches a cloud that awfully looks like an elephant wander over the horizon. He hears Kevin walk away after some seconds, and a few seconds later the door opens again, his brother and cousin walking in. 

“Oh, finally,” Andrew says after taking another drag of his cigarette and sighs, the smoke curling out of his mouth and into the air. “Nicky, Micky, Icky, Picky, Hey Nicky,” he says and throws the keyring he’d still been holding in the direction of the door. It cuts through the air fast, flies by Nicky’s shoulder almost close enough to brush his shirt or his hair, and hits the wall in the hallway before falling to the floor. It’s awfully funny to Andrew, who looks back at his cousin and wags his fingers. “Go, go, collect your prize.” 

He looks away again, as Nicky does, and keeps looking out of the window at the never changing scenery as he comes back to thank Andrew for finding his keys, and then Andrew starts humming as the time creeps by — the melody from the elevator that his memory can perfectly play back — until Kevin slams the bedroom door open when it’s time to leave. 

Andrew slips down from his desk, his cigarette already not burning anymore, and follows Kevin like he would follow him everywhere as long as the promise between them stretches and pulls and pushes like a rubber band. 

It doesn’t take too long for the others to join them in the hallway, and Dan does a headcount to make sure they’re all present — ever the dutiful and responsible captain — and then they split up between the two cars for the short drive to the stadium. 

Andrew opens the backdoor to his car and sends a grin that he knows is way too big in size to Neil as he passes him and scoots into the middle. The car wobbles a little from the force that Andrew uses to slam the car door shut; Neil’s eyes had wandered to where the upperclassmen had crowded into Matt’s truck, and Andrew hadn’t missed it because he hadn’t taken his eyes off Neil long enough for that to happen. 

Andrew’s leg starts bouncing up and down, his meds having him run on full energy, and his fingers creep to the window controls to let it slide down and up and down and up and down and up, a concert of squeaking noise after squeaking noise that he knows is going on everyone’s nerves but his own.

He really, awfully hopes Neil remembers that he is supposed to stay in Kevin’s line of sight and keep Kevin interested in his stupid Exy potential in exchange for Andrew to keep him safe. It would be very, extremely terrible if he happened to forget — not that one more is going to make any difference, Andrew thinks with the corner of his mouth rising. 

There’s a circle around Andrew, a circle of broken promises laying on the floor like sharp shards of glass from a broken window, and Andrew is barefoot and takes one step after the other, the stinging from going on and on nothing more than familiarity. 

His fingers stop pushing the button for the window controls as they pull into the stadium parking lot and a brush of air, cool from the speed Nicky is driving in, brushes against his forehead and his hair. There, standing in one of the only occupied slots is Abby’s car. 

Neil is sitting too close for Andrew not to notice when Neil tenses up; their shoulders are pressed together and their knees knock together as the car rolls over a bump in the road before it stops. There’s warmth spreading over Andrew’s whole body, staring from his left shoulder and knee, but he ignores it in favor of looking at Neil’s wide eyes. 

“She made it,” Andrew says as he looks back to Abby’s car and feels amusement roll over him in a wave strong enough to knock down buildings. “This should be interesting.” 

Nicky twists the key and pulls it out of the ignition. “For you, perhaps.” 

“Yes, for me.” Andrew laughs and gets out of the car before the others do. His brother must take too long for Neil because Neil gets out on Andrew’s side and Andrew watches as he hesitates with one hand on the door and stares at the orange abnormality parked a couple spaces down in an obvious attempt to stall. There’s something on his face that Andrew can’t fully make out (a mix of fear and guilt, perhaps) and it makes Andrew’s lips pull up in a smile dipped in mockery.

Then there’s annoyance breaking through the mask of confliction on Neil’s face and he pushes the car door closed to start for the fence. Andrew waits a second for Kevin to get out of the car and then turns and is hot in Neil’s heels as he goes down the hall after giving in the code into the security keypad. They step into the locker room, and then Neil absolutely freezes from head to toe and Andrew leans to the side to look past him. 

The room opening before them, orange lockers bright and ugly as they get illuminated by the glow of the overhead lights with benches in between them, isn’t empty. Allison is sitting on one of the benches, hair styled as always, but there’s something in her posture, something in the way her hands are locked between her knees with the fingers laced together, something about her shoulders being slumped and her expression being completely dead that gives away that she doesn’t seem to be present at all. 

Andrew grows bored of looking between them to wait for something to happen and walks by Neil, careful not to touch him as he does, and sits down on his usual spot on the couch; with enough space to his left and right for Kevin and Neil. 

Kevin and Aaron freeze when they see Allison and her hooded eyes staring at the floor, much like Neil did, but Nicky crosses the room without a flinch to crouch down in front of her, slowly as if Allison is a frightened animal instead of a human and Andrew rolls his head back to look at the ceiling as his cousin tries to talk to her. 

The rest of the team arrive then, their shoes slapping loudly on the floor in the hallway, and Dan and Renee immediately go to Allison. Andrew doesn’t really care about what they do, so he blends them out easily enough and looks at the cracks in the plaster on the ceiling, at the dust ball on the far right and the single spider web moving to the left and right when someone walks by. 

The couch dips to the left and right of him after Kevin and Neil finally remember how to use their feet and not a second later the sound of Wymack’s office door opening echoes through the room, slaps through the quiet like a crack of thunder without rain and lighting to accompany it. 

“Go ahead of us, Allison,” he says as he motions to her with one hand. “Nicky will load your things.” 

“Seriously,” Nicky says when the door closes behind Allison after Dan pulls her into another fierce embrace. “Whose idea was it to bring her along?” He brings up a hand to run it through his hair. “She shouldn’t be here.” 

“We gave her the choice to sit it out,” Wymack says. “She wanted to come.” 

And that—that isn’t surprising to Andrew, really. Not after he had asked Allison about Seth’s medication, not after his suspicions of him not taking them when he and Allison where in a good phase were right, not after he had shared his theory, not after she had looked up, eyes bright with unshed tears, to say, with a voice like the crackle of burning wood, _“He won’t win this.”_

“I wouldn’t have asked her,” Nicky says, and the worried tone in his voice amuses Andrew greatly because his dear cousin does have a habit of caring for people who keep giving him shit, doesn’t he? “I would have just left her behind and apologized later. She isn’t ready.” 

That makes a laugh bubble up inside of Andrew and he lets it out, lets his chest rumble with it. “So little faith, Nicky. Don’t worry. She’ll play.” Andrew cocks his head to the side, smiling, as the rest of them turn to look at him in shock and suspicion, and then raises his hands to gesture to Kevin and Neil. “Really, you should be more worried about these two lunatics.”

“That’s what I want to talk about,” Wymack says and then moves to stand in front of the TV. “Dan and I spent this week figuring out the best way to deal with the striker line. You know I can’t get us a sub yet,” he says and gestures with his hand to Kevin. “Kevin’s played full halves before, but not since last fall. I don’t think you’ve ever tried.” Wymack nods when Neil shakes his head. “Neither one of you can play an entire game in the state you’re in now. We’ll have to work you up to that one week at a time.” 

Andrew narrows his eyes at those words, lets them sink into his mind before they’re washed away a second later by the fog dancing around in his head, bouncing from let to right and left again. 

“In the meantime, we’re mixing things up to stay afloat.” He then glances at Dan and Renee, who were still sitting on the arms of the chair Allison had occupied. “Our solution isn’t pretty, but it’s the best we can come up with on such short notice, so pay attention.” 

There’s a clipboard sitting on the entertainment center and Wymack picks it up, flips a couple of pages and then begins reading. “The starting line-up for tonight’s first half gos as follows: Andrew, Matt, Nicky, Allison, Kevin, Neil. First half subs: Aaron for Nicky, Dan for Kevin, Renee for Allison.” 

A feeling grows inside of Andrew, one he can’t recognize enough to properly name it, but it’s foreboding and ugly and he doesn’t like it, not at all. 

“Wait,” Nicky says from somewhere on his right. “What?” 

Wymack holds up one hand to stop him from speaking. “Second half line-up: Aaron, Nicky, Allison, Kevin, Dan. Matt’s on for Nicky, Neil’s on for Dan, and Renee’s on for Allison again.” He lets go of the papers and looks up again. “Tell me you got that, because I’m not repeating it.” 

Oh, Andrew is sure that he got it. There isn’t a single thing Andrew didn’t get about what Wymack has said, and the words bounce around inside of Andrew’s head. He pulls at them and twists and turns and pushes them, searches for the hidden meaning but doesn’t find one. He lets another grin pull his lips apart. 

“Is that a joke, Coach?” Nicky asks. “Renee’s a goal-keeper.” 

“Dan’s the only one who can fill in for the striker line,” Renee says before Wymack can open his mouth again, “and Allison is going to be touch and go for a while. Coach and I talked about it on Tuesday—” which is awfully interesting because no one has talked to Andrew about it “—so I’ve had some time to modify our extra gear.” She blinks. “I know I haven’t played defense since middle school, but I’ll give it my best shot.” 

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s not you I’m worried about,” Nicky says and looks from Renee to Wymack and back. “If you’re going to play dealer, who do we have in goal second half?” 

And then Wymack looks in Andrew’s direction and Andrew rolls his head to look over his shoulder in search of someone standing there, because there is no way he’s implying what Andrew thinks he’s implying. But there isn’t anyone behind him and he raises an eyebrow at Wymack. Runs his thumb over his bottom lip, pulling the smile on his face a little wider, makes it look a little crazier. 

“Coach knows my medicine doesn’t work that way,” Andrew says, and it’s not in answer to Nicky or anyone, it’s a fact that he states with his eyes on Wymack. _You know that_ , Andrew thinks, _right, David?_

“I know,” Wymack says. 

“What are you telling me to do?” 

“I’m not telling you to do anything,” Wymack says. “We had a deal—” he had given Andrew a number, a number of goals to let it and Andrew had done what was asked of him, like he always did, before closing down the goal in exchange for the alcohol Wymack had offered “—and I’m not about to renege on that. I’m offering a trade, same terms and conditions as last year. Abby picked the bottle up yesterday and out it in the first aid kit,” he says. “It’s yours as soon as you walk off the court. All you have to do is play. How you play is up to you.” 

“They won’t be ready in a week,” Andrew tells him, and it’s nothing more than the honest truth. “How long do you think you can keep this up?” 

“As long as you can,” Wymack says. “So can you hold the line or can’t you?” 

Andrew thinks of his medication, of how he’s going to have to adjust it so that he’ll be able to hold out an entire game, like he’s done before, and laughs at the absurdity of it. “I guess we’ll find out.” 

Kevin turns his head sharply and then attempts to burn a hole through Andrew’s head with his stare, but Andrew ignores him and Wymack nods. “Anyone else have questions?” 

“Coach, this line-up is insane.”

“Yup. Good luck.” Wymack claps his hands as Kevin opens his mouth. “Let’s move. Get your gear and get out of my locker room.” He motions to the girls. “Dan, Renee, if you can sort Allison’s things out Nicky will take them to the bus.” He turns to Matt next. “Matt, you’re helping me with the stick rack. I’m starting the bus in ten minutes. If you’re not on it, you’re not coming with us. Go, go, go.” 

It isn’t more than an empty threat, but it somehow gets the whole team moving. Their travel duffels are sitting on the benches by the lockers, names and numbers on one side and a fox paw on the other. They make Andrew want to light them on fire and watch as the flames lick at the scratchy material until there’s nothing left. 

This whole situation is incredibly amusing to Andrew. Really, every single person trusting Andrew to guard the goal week after week, to push through his withdrawals back as if they’re just a little bit of snow blocking the road and not something that comes in three phases of physiological and physical crashing, getting violently ill with his head held over the toilet and cravings strong enough to tempt him to reach for his knives in a heartbeat is a joke that writes itself. 

It’s an even better joke, one with more layers, with the trust they put into him for their precious Exy but don’t trust him with anything else. Oh, how much they claim that he’s a violent monster from a foreign planet and how much they cling to this idea of Andrew they have crafted in their heads long ago and ignore how little Andrew has let others down after giving his word. 

Andrew opens his locker and slams it shut again in an echo of his thoughts, and repeats the process as they get faster and faster, as they go marry round and round. 

It’s all a push and pull and twist and bend of words and promises, it’s to do this and that without concrete questions but Andrew doesn’t mind this one much more than the others because Wymack is, probably, the only one smart enough to offer Andrew something in exchange for insane requests. And to hold his word — even if Andrew knows he would do it for free if Wymack asked. 

Because Wymack doesn’t care what they do, as long as no one gets hurt, no one gets caught and no one is stupid enough to bring it onto the court, he doesn’t care what everyone does in their free time and he knows of the club, of the dust, but Wymack doesn’t make it his business because he doesn’t want it to be his business. 

Before he has the chance to slam his locker shut a third time Kevin is suddenly there, catching the door to stop him and Andrew doesn’t fight him but instead shovels his gear out of the locker and directly onto the floor where it lands with a smack. 

“What is going on?” Kevin asks. “You can’t last a full game without your medicine.” 

“No, probably not,” Andrew says cheerfully because there’s no reason to pretend that he can do this effortlessly, even if he’s going to try. He crouches down then and sorts out the puddle he made of his armor and uniform. “We’ll figure something out.” 

“He’s done it once before,” Matt says from somewhere behind him. 

“Yeah, last October,” Nicky says and there’s the sound of a zipper getting pulled open and it’s awfully loud in the sudden quiet of the locker room. “We found out the ERC was going to cut us from the Class I ranks if we didn’t stop losing. Coach asked Andrew for a miracle, and Andrew gave us one. He made Coach come up with a number between one and five, and that’s how many points he let the other team get before he shut them out.” Nicky almost sounds amazed as he says it, and Andrew guesses that he might actually be. “It was probably the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.” 

“So you’ll try,” Kevin says through gritted teeth, “because Coach asked you to.” 

Andrew folds his arms across his knees, tilts his head back far enough that he can feel his hair brush the locker behind him and smiles at the bitter edge in Kevin’s voice. “Careful, Kevin,” he says and narrows his eyes a bit. “Your jealous streak is showing.”

“For eight months you’ve told me no. In eight seconds you told him yes. Why?” 

Why, Andrew repeats silently inside of his head with amusement making his thoughts buzz. Because Coach isn’t a stuck up, arrogant asshole like Kevin is. Because he trades and gives something in return. Because when Andrew says no, Kevin doesn't back off but keeps pushing and pushing even when he should really know by now that it doesn’t work like that with Andrew, even when Kevin should know it’s not going to get him anywhere. 

Because Andrew has screamed ‘no’ for too long, because it has been ignored again and again, and Kevin Day sure as hell isn’t going to get his way like that. 

“Oh, that’s easy,” Andrew says and stuffs the last of his gear into his bag before zipping it shut. He slings it over his shoulder, goes back to his feet and stands close enough to Kevin that he almost knocks the striker a step back. “It’s just more fun to tell you no,” he says instead of voicing his thoughts, not that Kevin would understand them anyway. “That’s what you wanted, right? You wanted me to have fun. I am. Aren’t you?” 

Andrew has too much experience with fights, has trained too much with Renee, not to know that Kevin is about to come onto him. And his fingers slip under his armband when Kevin’s hands brush his shoulders, when his touch burns through Andrew’s clothes like a hot iron, to shove him against the lockers. 

There’s blood on Kevin’s shirt, a splash of red color on his shirt from where Andrew had applied it not one second earlier. It’s a long cut, long enough to be a reminder, but shallow enough not to be anything serious. Kevin walks back a step, curses once. 

“Jesus, Andrew!” Matt says with shock in his voice and then turns to Kevin. “Kevin, are you all right?” 

“I’m fine.” Kevin puts a hand to his chest and then looks down at the blood on his fingers. 

Andrew steps away from the lockers and gets into Kevin’s space again, he puts the edge of his knife against Kevin’s chest over his heart and tilts his head back to grin in Kevin’s face. There’s movement from behind Kevin and then Kevin thrusts out an arm to keep whoever it is away. Andrew waits for the figure behind Kevin, Matt he guesses from the height, to still before he opens his mouth again. 

“Kevin, Kevin,” he says. “So predictable. So pathetic. How about a tip? A reward for all your hard work, or something? Ready?” He doesn’t wait for Kevin to answer before he continues. “You’ll start having more success when you ask for things you can actually have.” 

“I can have this,” Kevin says, and his voice is thick with frustration. Like a petulant child. “You’re just being stupid.” 

“I guess we’ll see,” Andrew says, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you!” With that he moves around Kevin and wipes his knife on his armband. He looks at it, looks at the clean metal and at the way the lights from above make the blade glint. Then he shoves it back in its sheath underneath the black material, the cool press of its weight familiar to Andrew. 

Andrew slams the door behind him on his way out. He pulls out a cigarette out of his pocket on the way to the orange monstrosity standing in the parking lot, that will transport them to their game, lit by the rays of the sun shining down from the sky and making it even more unbearable than it already is, and considers it through the small flame of his lighter before he snorts. 

Abby does nothing more than frown at him when she sees him smoke and Andrew salutes and then waits, hears the chirping of birds in the trees, the powerful slap of wings as some fly by, cars roll by on the road near them and waits some more. When Kevin walks out of the stadium with a face like thunder, Andrew is almost done with his cigarette and he blows the smoke in Kevin’s face, which causes Kevin to stop and start coughing with his fist slapping on his chest, before he gets on the bus as Abby notices the blood on Kevin’s shirt. 

“Oh my God, Kevin,” she says and then gasps once. “Is that blood? Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine, Abby.” 

“Is it deep? Do you need stitches or anything else?” 

“No, I don’t need stitches,” Kevin says. 

“What happened?”

“I,” Kevin says and then pauses and Andrew doesn’t resist the urge to smile, to let his teeth show in a smile wide enough to make him look as crazy as everyone assumes he is, “I fell, it’s nothing.” 

Andrew takes his seat in the last row, the seat that puts no one at his back and gives him the perfect view over the rest of the bus and who’s on it, and a few minutes later the others join him. Kevin takes his place in the row before him and glares at Andrew, but Andrew ignores him to stare out of the window. At the cars driving by, the clouds wandering over the horizon, the shadows trees throw onto the grass and asphalt. 

Then the bus rumbles to life after Neil takes his place in the row between Kevin and Nicky’s and Wymack gets behind the wheel. The doors snap closed and Andrew drums his fingers against the window in a rhythm his mind caught, like it does with everything, but one he can’t name when they’re on the road, his mind still happily clouded and his view onto the world colorful and bright, and then he watches as the campus slowly gets smaller and smaller until it completely disappears from his view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI! this is a game chapter, and i hope that my jock brain was able to make it as exciting/interesting from andrew’s perspective as it is in the actual books (say as much as you want about nora, she does know how to write those games.. kinda)
> 
> — please enjoy reading!

Andrew spends the extremely uneventful ride to Belmonte University tapping against the glass of the window on his left, in the melody that doesn’t leave his head (like nothing ever does), and starts counting clouds when he purposefully misses his next dose to push it back thirty minutes, to push it back until they stop for a quick dinner to make it possible for him to last through a whole game. 

And then he shreds his napkin after taking them, after they roll in his stomach and cause the grin on his face to grow and grow, rolls the white fabric into small balls and lets them rain onto Kevin’s dark head in an imitation of snow. Or very bright dust. Or dandruff — not that that falls from the sky. 

Due to them crossing a time zone on their way to Nashville, Andrew’s phone shows seven forty-five when they reach the stadium, which is extremely amusing considering their first serve starts at seven-thirty. Andrew lets it snap shut as they roll into a fenced-in parking lot manned by very dispassionate looking security guards and considers his phone for a moment, flicks a look a few rows down before putting it away. 

Andrew tries not to step on the back of Kevin’s shoes as they make their way out of the bus (he manages not to do it, though it’s a close and very tempting thing), and there are two volunteers waiting for them to unload their gear before they lead them to the away team’s locker room. On the way there, Andrew takes a look around and barely holds in a snort. While Belmonte University’s stadium is almost identical to the Foxhole Court, right down to the size and build, the crowd here wears green and it isn’t less infuriating as Palmetto’s orange to him. 

The interior of the stadium is different; the rooms are larger (probably to accommodate the league’s bigger teams) and the changing rooms are right inside the door they come in, with the bathrooms being separate. Then there’s a room for Abby to use, and Andrew spares it a glance, looks inside at the pristine bed, at the white shelves along the walls, before they arrive at a very large room that is free for them to use to argue strategies and then to be ripped apart by the press. 

There are small pictures decorating the walls, similar as in their own stadium, and Andrew looks at them for a second as one of the volunteers escapes through a back door to find the referees and alert Coach Harrison to their arrival. Andrew looks from one of the faces in the pictures to the others, labels them loud enough for the others to hear (“boring”, “old”, “half asleep”, “hey, this one kind of looks like Kevin. just as ugly!”) before he loses interest and walks after the others to change. 

He takes a step inside and feels the grin on his face grow bigger, feels it twist into something cruel masked by amusement. There’s an open, narrow doorway that separates the lockers from the benches and it’s all stuff that doesn’t interest Andrew at all, but what does interest Andrew, and does terribly so, are the communal showers. Without stall doors. 

Andrew thinks back to a comment he had made to Kevin a few weeks ago as he puts his chest armor on, followed by his shoulder pats. _“He has to hide his ouches, Kevin,”_ he can hear himself say as he pulls on his jersey before he drops onto the bench behind him to tug his shin guards on before he covers them with his knee-length socks. _“I broke into Coach’s cabinet and read his files,”_ he remembers saying, nothing more than a simple untruth, and he remembers Neil’s reaction to it, the way he froze and his face turned so white Andrew thought someone had splashed him with wall paint. 

Curious, Andrew thinks when he’s done and Neil joins them from wherever he’d been hiding to change (bathroom, his mind whispers cheerily). He watches as Neil takes a look around and then swallows against the laughter threatening to break through the comfortable buzz in his head, follows the others out into the main room instead. Decides to pick it apart to analyze again later.

What does cause Andrew to snort as they line up and he takes his place at the end of the line, though, is still Neil. Neil, Neil, Neil, Peal, Meal, Seal, his mind sings, getting faster and faster, louder and shriller like a carnival ride before going into the final round. Neil, who takes his place between Kevin and Allison at the front of the line and doesn’t look back as he does. 

“How long do you think you can keep that up?” Andrew asks from where he’s standing, his lips twitching at the obvious discomfort in Neil’s body language. 

“Can you crash already?” 

Andrew honestly doesn’t feel as if he’s going to crash any time soon. It’s quite the opposite, actually. He’s still flying high on cloud seven, the world around him bright, brighter than the sun, with the white of their away jerseys almost blinding him enough that he has to squeeze his eyes shut. But he knows that it will come sooner rather than later, the withdrawals will crash over him like a massive wave and almost knock him off his feet when the exhaustion from the game will be too much for the drugs to catch up with. 

He doesn’t say that, though. “All in good time,” he says instead and follows the rest of the team through the tunnel that separates the locker rooms from the court. Before Andrew is able to see the crowd, he hears the loud cheers and screams of hundreds of people that drown out their footsteps. 

There are flashes of green everywhere, the seats rapidly filling with fans and making the stadium look like an extremely loud lawn more than anything else. Andrew focuses on that detail before movement on his left has his attention bouncing to Belmonte’s Terrapin mascot and Andrew thinks that it’s one of the ugliest things he has ever had to witness. After Kevin Day, of course. 

Since Andrew and Nicky are the last in the line, they have the stick wrap and Andrew lets it go and almost drop when Dan grabs for one end of it to pull it between two of the away benches. And then she actually inspects it as if there could be any damage before snapping it open. Kevin immediately grabs one of his racquets and wanders off to the court wall, close enough that Andrew can keep his eye on him. 

Andrew blends out the rest of the team and instead takes his own racquet to lean on and watches as Neil goes over to Kevin. As they turn their heads to each other. As Kevin gestures behind him and in Andrew’s direction. As Neil looks over his shoulder and his brown eyes, his false, false brown eyes, meet Andrew’s.

Considering both of them have hard on’s for this stupid sport, Andrew can immediately guess what they’re talking about and doesn’t stop his thoughts from bouncing into the same direction as Renee comes to stand next to him. The week before Andrew had timed his dose, missed it thirty minutes before the game had begun and had started winding down, had started coming down from the constant high he was on, during the end of their warm ups and when he had walked onto the court. 

There’s a time limit to this, and Andrew knows it. It’s about an hour and fifteen minutes that can be taken from all of this without the crutches the alcohol and cracker dust give him in Columbia to let his mind be focused and as clear as possible while he depends on the medication, before he starts getting sick. And it’s not nearly enough to make him hold out an entire game, considering the fifteen-minute break smack in the middle of the game and penalties that add to the clock ticking down and down in Andrew’s head, and he knows this. 

He is more than aware of it, but he decides to worry about it when it comes to that. Or not at all! No, he probably won’t worry about it. 

“Bring it, Foxes,” Wymack calls and Andrew turns to him, as do the others. There’s a flash of orange in his peripheral vision and then wolf whistles and cheers. 

“Hi Katelyn!” Nicky yells then and Andrew turns to watch his cousin wave enthusiastically before Aaron elbows him and the cheerleader waves back. Then Nicky throws a grin in Neil’s direction. “Katelyn is Aaron’s girlfriend.”

“She’s not,” Aaron says, _lies_ , and Andrew grins at the sudden flash of hot anger deep inside of him. “Knock it off.” 

“She would be if you’d just ask her out,” Matt says and sounds confused as he does. “What’s the hold up?” 

“Oh!” Andrew says and slaps his fist into his palm. He flashes Matt the grin still accompanied by anger so hot Andrew feels like he will catch fire and then turns to his Aaron, to his twin, to the man that looks like him right down to all the ways they don’t look like each other, to the man that had made Andrew a promise and then broken it, glued the mismatched pieces back together as if Andrew wouldn’t notice. “Maybe,” Andrew says and switches to German as he does (because this really isn’t anyone’s business), “he’s afraid she’ll die on him like the last woman he really loved.”

His words are harsh and sharpened into something dangerous, aimed to hurt, and they do from the look on Aaron’s face. “Fuck you.” 

“Christ, Andrew.” 

“I’m going to guess that was completely inappropriate,” Matt says and looks between Andrew, Aaron and Nicky with a frown deep enough to put wrinkles on his forehead. “Do I want to know?”

“Do you think we want to tell you?” Andrew asks back in German and almost snorts at that. How interesting it would be to see his dear twin brother try to explain that one. To see him turn Andrew into the monster everyone is already convinced that he is, to twist their promise, to twist the broken pieces left of it and make them bury deeper and deeper. 

“Stow that,” Wymack says before anything else can happen and claps once. “Last I checked this was a team meeting, not a gossip circle. We’re on the court for warm-ups in ten,” he says and gestures to the court behind them. “Dan’s going to start you off with some laps. If any of you so much as look at the Terrapins on your way past their benches I’ll let you walk home from there,” he says, and Andrew decides that he will definitely look at them to be difficult. “Good? Then get going.” 

Dan and Matt are the first ones to actually move and they set the pace with the rest of them following. Andrew waits until they’re roughly done with a quarter of the inner court before Kevin’s accusing looks start to bore him and he moves to the side to let Neil pass him. Kevin gives up his staring a few seconds later and joins the other striker. 

They stop when Dan signals them to after two laps and start stretching by the benches, where Andrew manages to make Nicky trip into Kevin before both of them stumble by complete accident when he yawns and rams his elbow into his cousin’s side, until the referees signal them to enter the court. Andrew has the urge to aim the shots from the team during the fifteen minute drills at their ankles but refrains when he thinks about the fit Kevin would throw at it. 

Eventually, they get called off the court again for the coin toss. The announcer reads off the team statistics and since it’s nothing Andrew hasn’t heard before, he makes his way to his racquet and slings it over his shoulder to rest his arms on it. It doesn’t take too long until Andrew is called on court and stops before he does, nods at the quiet “four” Wymack mutters. Then he actually does get on court and takes a moment to glance at Allison, sees her head tilted down, and then sighs hard enough that he’s almost surprised not to deflate like a balloon before he stops near her. 

“Rage is poured into an illimitable cup, isn’t it?” Andrew asks and remembers the emotion shining in her eyes, brighter and louder than the grief had been as she had said, _“he will not win this.”_ He continues on his way before she can answer, sets one foot in front of the other before he adds, “Bottoms up.” 

As soon as Andrew has taken his place in goal, the head referee hands Allison the ball and the warning buzzer sounds to signal that there’s one minute left until the game begins. The officials split up and file off the court on opposite sides to close and lock the doors on either side of the court. Andrew can hear the crowd screaming from where he’s standing but he doesn’t focus on it, he looks at the timer, at the numbers counting down to zero and then the buzzer sounds and Terrapins and Foxes break formation at the same time to race across the court toward each other. It honestly reminds Andrew a little of the movies they had shown in history, of two opposing kingdoms at the beginning of a fight clashing. 

He can hear the war cry the other goalkeeper lets out and then there’s the sound of a racquet slamming against the floor but Andrew doesn’t spare him a glance. His eyes are on the ball Allison serves towards him and then he swings his racquet, lets it crack against the ball with enough force to let it fly to the strikers. 

From what Andrew can tell with half of his mind still dipped into a sparkling rainbow and the drugs glittering along his body, the game starts rough immediately and doesn’t get easy. He does, however, notice that one of their strikers runs easier, passes better than the weeks before. And because his eyes are following Neil as his drugs slowly but surely make their way out of his body, slowly but surely make the colorful view of the world around him disappear and make it dull, grey and boring like he’s used to, he can see the backliner that has half a foot on Neil jerking his head at him. 

Wymack’s muttered number is at the back of his mind as one of the opposing strikers takes a shot at goal that would be too obvious to miss. His muscles burn by the time he lets one shot, then a second and a third through, as the balls hit the net behind him and a blinding red lights up the goal behind him. The cheers from the audience get quieter and quieter around Andrew, they crash against him and then around him as if they’re water and he’s a giant structure made out of thick glass. 

By the time Kevin scores at the twenty minute mark, Andrew feels as if he’s suddenly standing in the eye of a storm, with the other players and the rest of the audience raging around him and screaming and cheering. There’s a sharpness to his eyes that has been there before but clouded over by his meds, it’s as if he has poor sight and put on a pair of glasses. 

Wymack uses Kevin scoring to send out the substitutions and Andrew takes a moment to lean against his racquet. His bones feel heavy, as if made out of steel, as if made out of one part of a magnet with the matching one buried underground directly where he’s standing and tugging him down and down. Kevin, Allison and Aaron walk off the court and Nicky, Dan and Renee (who gives Allison a hug at the door) come on and jog to their places. 

There’s a lull in the game and Coach Harrison seems to take advantage of it to rotate the Terrapins. The backliners stay where they are, which doesn’t surprise Andrew since they didn’t have a lot to do so far, but he sends out two new strikers that Andrew spares with barely a glance as his stomach twists once and clenches his teeth. Swallows once, twice. 

The buzzer sounds again and Renee follows Allison’s footsteps as she turns and heaves the ball at Andrew. And Andrew stops leaning on his racquet and waits until the ball is close enough to smack it hard enough that he almost expects his bones to shake from the vibrations of his racquet.

He watches as the ball hits the wall near the ceiling where he aimed for, where it bounces up to hit the actual ceiling itself and then rebounds at a steep angle to the first-fourth line. The backliners who had been starting forward to keep Dan and Neil out of their space turned back as fast as they could. Herrera manages to catch the ball and throws it forward before Neil attaches himself to the giant man like a human glue stick. 

Matt wins the fight against the Terrapin striker who caught the ball a second before in a play Andrew remembers hearing on the bus on the way here, when he was occupied with ripping his napkin in hundreds of pieces. Matt hooks his racquet around his striker’s and gives it a hard swipe to pop the ball free before he grabs it and throws it back to Andrew. 

Andrew swallows again against another twist of his stomach, feels a droplet of sweat run down the side of his face and imagines that it’s murky instead of clear, tainted from the chemicals bleeding out of Andrew as if he’s an open wound. Before Andrew hits the ball to the left where it smacks off the wall in front of the Fox benches and rebounds in Neil and Herrera’s general direction, Neil is already running. 

He catches the ball right off the wall and Andrew watches as he doesn’t try to protect it but gives the butt of his racquet a hard pop with one fist to send the ball flying straight out of the net. Neil drops to his knees not one moment later without slowing down and slides along the court. 

And then Herrera crashes full speed into the wall, exactly where Neil had been a second before. 

That move is so stupid, so out of the blue, that Andrew knows he would be bend over and laugh and laugh and laugh until the air in his body wouldn’t allow him to carry on without breathing if he was still drugged up to the heavens — but he’s not and—

—And the wood of Andrew’s racquet groans and Andrew forces himself to relax his grip. There’s a match that has been lit inside of him, a small, very small spark of anger, as he watches this reckless act unfold. And Andrew’s anger is carefully poured all over the floor of a wooden house, it’s gasoline and dangerous and explosive and there’s a match burning above it that could get dropped at any given moment and tear down the whole construction of the building with the temperature at which Andrew burns. 

But it doesn’t drop, it’s held in a tight fist and then the small flame disappears, gets blown out, as Neil pushes away from Herrera’s crumpling body and continues on to scoop up the ball, take off for the goal and take a swing. And scores.

Interesting, Andrew remembers thinking when he had seen Neil the first time without the constant high of his medication there to cloud his judgement, and he thinks maybe he underestimated just how interesting someone like Neil Josten can be for someone like himself. 

He blinks that thought away (stores it as far back as possible in his mind) as his muscles scream and burn as he keeps swinging and swinging his racquet to defend the goal. By the time halftime arrives, Andrew’s head is pleasantly silent, his thoughts are clear like clean water in a river that makes it possible to see the creatures living beneath the surface and the stones and dirt on the ground, and the score is four-even when he blinks up at it.

Andrew obediently follows the rest of the team to the locker room when Wymack points in the direction and slowly tugs of his gloves. Lets his burning hands dangle down between his knees. He blends out the others as he focuses on a point on the wall, a point where it looks like the color of the bright paint is fainter than everywhere else, and lets the noises of his lively teammates wash over him. 

Again, he feels like he’s standing in the eye of a giant storm. In the middle, where it’s quiet and dull. In a vacuum where the rowdy cheer of everyone can’t touch him. 

“Stop it,” someone says and breaks through the familiar silence that hangs around Andrew like a blanket. Andrew blinks at the wall and slides his gaze to Neil feels the accusatory look Kevin flicks at him like a physical touch. 

“I’m not doing anything,” he says, which is most likely exactly what Neil means, and looks away again when a wave of nausea suddenly hits him and makes his stomach twist. 

“Hey, so we’re actually doing much better than I thought we would,” Nicky says somewhere to Andrew’s right and before he can continue, Wymack walks in and scowls at him. 

“This is horrible,” he says. “This kind of game isn’t going to work for us, and today is the last time I’ll tolerate it. You have to start creating point gaps in the first half. You need that cushion when it’s your second wind against their fresh line-up.” 

“He’s right,” Dan says. “We need to push harder earlier. We hold back because we’re trying to pace ourselves for a long night, but playing catch-up is a killer. We need to play smarter and balance this out somehow.” 

Wymack nods at that and then looks at Andrew. “Andrew?” 

There’s an unspoken question in the way Wymack says his name, in the way his voice carries it over and makes it easy for Andrew to snatch out of the air and see it for what it is. It’s a question asking how he’s doing and Andrew feels like a glass that has been dropped again and again when he’s coming down from his meds, like one that people have tried to glue back together, like one whose pieces cannot fit like they once did. 

But Andrew doesn’t know how to say this. 

_With your words_ , a voice in the back of his mind says very, very quietly and it sounds an awful lot like Bee, which doesn’t surprise Andrew — she had always been rather silly. 

He chooses the easiest answer and says, “Present.” And it’s not a lie, because he is present in the here and now. 

Wymack nods and snaps his fingers at them a second later. “Come on, stretch it out.” He walks away a couple of steps and calls for Abby down the hall.

“Coming,” Abby says from out of sight and then shows up carrying two jugs; one has water and the other one a sports drink. She pours one of each for everyone, and Andrew accepts his without comment and downs the sports drink immediately because he knows the sugar will soothe the burn of his withdrawal, even if not for long. “How are you doing?” 

Neil drains both of his cups and then says, “I’m fine.” 

“Ha!” Nicky fist-pumps the air. “Thank you for being so predictable, Neil,” he says as Neil turns to him with a frown. “You just scored me ten bucks with no words.” 

“Are you serious?” Matt asks. “Who the hell bet against you?” 

Nicky jerks a thumb in Kevin’s direction and Andrew rolls his head back, lets his head rest against the cool metal of the locker behind him and looks at the ceiling. Narrows his eyes at the light as it causes his head to start pounding. “There’s a sucker born every minute.” 

“You are an idiot,” Kevin says and Andrew’s temple starts pounding at the sounds of his voice. “Do you see this?” Andrew doesn’t have to look to know that Kevin is holding out his left arm as he starts to rant. “Injuries are not a joke. They are not something to gloss over. If you get hurt out there, you do something about it. You take it easy, you have Coach pull you, you ask Abby for help—I don’t care,” he says, sounding awfully like someone who does care. “If you ever say ‘I’m fine’ about your health again, I will make you rue the day you were born. Are we clear?” 

Oh, and isn’t that a sight to see, Kevin Day making threats. If the first wave of his withdrawal wasn’t slowly creeping towards Andrew, he knows he would be laughing at this. 

“We’re clear.” 

“I did warn you,” Dan says. “I think Kevin’s threats are more effective though.” 

“I’ll ask again, then,” Abby says. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m—” Andrew can see Kevin taking a step forward out of the corner of his eye and Neil breaks off. And then he huffs. “It’s just sore. So long as I can keep my mark off my right side I’ll be—okay.” 

Matt snorts out a laugh and Andrew feels his eyebrow twitch at the near-miss of Neil saying he’s fine. “I don’t see this experiment ending well, Neil.” 

“Some people are just hardwired to be stupid,” Wymack says and claps and the sound echoes around the room loud enough that Andrew feels like his head is about to split open. “Now stop yapping and listen up. We have a lot to go through.” 

Andrew stops listening halfway through Wymack going through their opponents, everything after the striker he mentioned doesn’t matter much to him, and what he does hear about Watts (“Watts penalty shots always get taken to the bottom corner, you hear me?”) won’t be forgotten again. He looks at the ceiling again as Wymack goes on and manages to drink another two cups of the sports drink Abby had brought inside before the buzzer sounds overhead to signal that they’re due in the inner court in one minute. 

“Let’s get ready to move,” Wymack says as Abby goes off to search for Allison. He shoos them into line and Andrew takes his place at the back of the line once more. 

He takes a deep breath before Wymack opens the door and lets them back into the stadium, deep enough that it threatens to split him open right in the middle and squeezes his stinging eyes shut. Then he goes, follows the rest on the court and takes his place in the goal once more after glancing at the scoreboard. The number of the goals the Terrapins had scored matches the one Wymack had muttered to him earlier and Andrew tilts his head to the side to let his neck crack. 

When the buzzer sounds, the Terrapins serve and the court becomes a whirlwind of movement. Their staring dealer gets the half going with a move so arrogant it could be coming from Kevin instead; he fires straight up the court and in Andrew’s direction. Allison sidesteps it and Andrew can see in the way the ball is coming that while it will come close, it won’t be enough to actually score, so he mirrors the striker’s arrogance and just watches as the ball misses his goal by half an inch. 

Andrew gives the ball a small pop on the rebound and makes it bounce off the ground before he smacks it back the way it came with enough force that his arm muscles feel like they’re on fire. Allison watches as it passes her and then crashes into the dealer as he catches it; not hard enough to make him fall, but hard enough to make him lose the ball. Andrew puts his weight from one foot to the other, his soles hot and sending pain up his entire legs as Allison takes the ball from the Terrapin and passes it up the court and runs after it. 

By the time Neil comes back on the court for Dan, Andrew’s stomach keeps twisting and turning and nausea crawls up his throat slowly but surely and Andrew’s jaw hurts from clenching it. He keeps watching his teammates instead, and it’s like he’s stuck on one side of a wall made out of thick glass; thick enough that it doesn’t let their excitement, the screams of the audience or the cheers from Wymack and everyone else through. They hit Andrew and slide right past him, almost present enough that Andrew expects the goal behind him to light up. 

It’s a few minutes later when the Terrapins try to score that Matt throws his striker straight into the wall. Then they’re fighting, throwing punches left and right until Renee goes to break it up. Matt throws up his hands and backs off when he sees her, but the Terrapin seems to be too fired up to care and goes after Matt again. 

And then Renee catches the back of the striker’s jersey and drives her foot into the back of his knee. Andrew has sparred enough times with Renee, and landed on the mat more than once, to be familiar with and recognize the force Renee puts behind that kick. The striker collapses to his knees and Renee puts all her weight on his calf to keep him down until the referees separate them and give all three of them yellow cards. 

The rest of the game rushes by Andrew as he defends the goal again and again through the waves of nausea and the twisting pain of his stomach because he clearly remembers Wymack saying four and not five and to hell if Andrew doesn’t hold his end. 

When there’s only one minute left on the clock, sixty seconds that seem to drag on forever and ever in Andrew’s head, that stretch and stretch a mile long, Kevin manages to score and put them in the lead. The number on the timer gets smaller and smaller as it continues to count down and then, when there’s only eight seconds left, a Terrapin striker manages to get the ball. 

Andrew watches as Aaron runs after him, too exhausted to close the gap, and then he recognizes who the striker is before the striker’s ten steps take him all the way to the foul line for his shot. He swings his racquet back and Andrew is moving before the striker finishes his shot. 

Wymack’s words about Watts and the bottom corner (and four, four, _four_ , _not_ five) are loud in Andrew’s head as he throws himself at the ground as far over as he can and ignores the utter discomfort it shoots up his entire body and slams his racquet down between the ball and the goal with enough force that Andrew can hear and feel the wood of the stick crack underneath his fingers. 

The ball hits the taut strings of his racquet and bounces off, and Andrew lets go of his racquet to go for the ball himself. He can see the striker doing the same before Aaron crashes into him and they both narrowly avoid colliding with Andrew, but Andrew doesn’t care enough to look up as he grabs the ball in one of his burning hands before he throws it to one side. Clears it away from the goal. 

And then the final buzzer sounds, deafening in volume, and all of the strength leaves Andrew’s body. The willpower it took to continue going, to push his body to the extreme, evaporates like a cloud and Andrew feels like a puppet with its strings cut as he drops to his knees. He grabs for his racquet and puts it in his lap, his harsh breaths through the burning nausea the only thing he hears in the absolute silence of his mind. 

There’s someone crouching in front of Andrew and he glares up, teeth clenched, as Kevin reaches for his racquet to give off the illusion that Andrew is inspecting his racquet instead of trying not to get sick.

Andrew lets go with one hand to gesture and Kevin gestures back as if they’re having an actual conversation, as if Andrew can hear anything else than his own desperate gasps of air through his clenched teeth. 

The rest of the team joins them and momentarily builds a barricade around Andrew. They’re celebrating and there’s the sound of someone smacking shoulders and helmets in excitement before Matt says, “That’s how we do it! That’s how we do it, Foxes!” 

Andrew drops his racquet, the burn at the back of his throat hot enough to prompt him to move, and his muscles and bones and everything screams in protest as he gets to his feet. It’s almost enough to make him stumble, but before he has even a chance to, Nicky slings an arm around his shoulders, and that makes something else in Andrew’s stomach uncurl, to yank him close. 

“That was awesome!” Nicky says and then whoops as Andrew opens his mouth. “We are going to own this season!” 

“That was sloppy,” Kevin says and stands up again, Andrew’s broken racquet in one of his hands, and the tone he’s using is almost enough to make Andrew want to knock his teeth out. It’s a very close thing. “We barely had it.” 

“Oh, shut up, sour face,” Nicky says. “Save your grouching for the ride back and stop spoiling our moment of glory.” 

“Seriously,” Matt says. He reaches out to give Kevin’s helmet a vigorous rub. “Would it kill you to smile when no one’s paying you to?” He doesn’t wait for an answer from Kevin as he turns to Allison as she joins them and then lifts her off her feet in a hug. “You’re amazing.” 

“Come on,” Dan says. “Let’s give these guys our condolences and get out of here.” 

Andrew follows to shuffle into line with the others, and keeps his teeth clenched and swallows again and again, as the Terrapins slowly do the same. Everyone else slaps sticks or hands and Andrew does neither, seeing as Kevin still has his racquet and as Andrew is close to getting sick on the court. He breaks away as the rest of the team swarms Wymack and makes his way to the locker room, crosses it while he tugs off his gloves and helmet, and walks to the room he had seen earlier, the one with the bed. 

The door is unlocked as he tries it, which doesn’t surprise him, and Abby is inside, already pulling out two things out of her bag; his bottle of pills and the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Wymack had promised him. Andrew takes both of it from her. 

“Andrew, are you—?” 

“Go,” Andrew manages to say through clenched teeth and doesn’t watch her leave as she actually does without fighting him. His fingers are red, as if he held them under hot water for a little too long, and they hurt as he sits down on the floor and opens his pill bottle. It slips out of his grasp and he doesn’t care enough to catch it but watches as it hits the floor. A few white pills fall out and scatter around him, and they oddly remind him of the napkin he had shredded earlier. 

Andrew unscrews the bottle and takes a big and long swig of it. He welcomes the hot burn of the alcohol as it runs down his throat and momentarily chases away the nausea that has been holding him in an iron grip, and then takes one of the pills around him. Takes another sip of the bottle. Leans his head against the wall as his breathing slowly regulates. 

The door opens eventually, like Andrew knew it would before he came in here, and Wymack walks in. He doesn’t close the door behind him all the way, leaves it open an inch, and walks a few steps to sit on the pristine bed on the opposite side of the room from where Andrew is. There’s a pack of cigarettes in his left hand, similar to the one in Andrew’s bag, and suddenly his fingers itch with the need to hold one. 

Wymack nods at him when their gazes meet and Andrew looks away again to take another sip, even when his lips pull up the faintest bit as his medication already puts its cloudy fingers over Andrew’s mind. 

Andrew doesn’t know how much time passes until Wymack nods, again, and Andrew almost wants to ask if he’s alright and if he needs to see Bee for his possible imaginary friend problem before the door opens and Neil walks in. He turns to close the door behind himself and then he looks at Andrew and stops. And Andrew looks back. Considers raising an eyebrow. Maybe waving.

“Abby and Allison went ahead to the bus,” Wymack tells Neil when he doesn’t say anything. “You can join them or wait here for everyone else.” 

Andrew knows that Neil is going to stay before he does. He knows the look on Neil’s face that flashed for all but a second when he walked in. He has seen it in his own eyes more than once before, when he stared at the mirror, at his own reflection and wanted out. 

Neil sits down on the stool closest to the door and puts his bag on the ground at his feet, looks at Andrew again and then at Wymack. “Why did you pay for stalls, Coach?” 

“Maybe I knew I’d need them one day.” 

Andrew smiles around the mouth of the bottle in his hand. He remembers, again, what he’s said to Kevin about Neil’s ouches and ignores the sudden itch coming from his own forearms. “Neil is a walking tragedy.” 

“You’re a pretty pathetic sob story yourself,” Wymack says. 

And that—that is not only the truth, because Andrew supposes that he is, but it’s enough to force a weak laugh out of him. “I guess so, Coach.” He takes another sip from the bottle. “That reminds me. I’m staying with you this weekend.” 

Wymack blinks. “I don’t remember inviting you.” 

It doesn’t sound like a no because Andrew knows that it isn’t one. This is as much as Andrew is willing to give Wymack for free, the need to stay away from everyone else, to stay away from Kevin willingly. 

“Kevin is going to be so annoying to deal with after tonight.” Andrew doesn’t say what goes on inside of him because he can’t do that without saying too much, without saying that Kevin not understanding Andrew’s no when it was aimed at him was exactly what Andrew has been used to after screaming the word for all his life. And considering how today went, how Kevin saw Andrew say yes to Coach without a fight, he doesn’t think Kevin will just let it go. Which would only end with Andrew considering to pull out Kevin’s teeth one by one with his bare hands.

Andrew quickly screws the bottle closed and outs it aside. He repacks Abby’s bag quickly, shoves it out of his way and gets to his feet. “I can stab him again or I can stay with you. The choice is yours.”

Wymack pinches the bridge of his nose as if Andrew is causing him to have a migraine. “Andrew,” he then says, “I swear to God—” 

“Bye, Coach!” Andrew heads for the door, bored with watching Wymack and bored with Neil doing nothing but make Andrew feel like he’s burning from the inside out without even lifting a finger. But then Neil puts a hand in his path and Andrew stops. He turns his head to look at Neil, all wet dark hair and dark, dark eyes that look weirdly wrong on his face, and cocks his head to the side. 

“How did you do it?” he asks. “How did you know where to go?” 

“Coach said Watts always takes his penalty shots to the bottom corner,” Andrew says and flashes Neil a grin when Neil’s mouth falls open. It must’ve looked like he wasn’t paying attention to anything Wymack had said during half-time, when in truth Andrew clonked out again after Wymack had made the off-the-cuff remark and it had been caught by Andrew’s brain to stay. “With the game riding on him he was bound to do the same.” 

“But,” Neil says and then just stops and looks at him with a frown. 

Andrew flashes Neil a bright grin, amused at his speechlessness and then leaves to get out of his sweaty clothes. 

He thinks about that look, a little later, when they’re all piled into their horrible orange bus and on their way back to their own campus six hours away. Neil isn’t stupid, Andrew knows this. No one could survive that long running from who Neil was running from without the sharp intelligence Neil has shown that he possessed, which isn’t a bad thing because it doesn’t necessarily make Andrew’s job of keeping him safe harder but— 

—but that look, all clear and sharp and filled with intelligence, is dangerous because it means that Andrew isn’t the only one standing in front of a door with multiple locks, no keyhole and no keys in his possession that fit. It means that Neil is doing the exact same, and Andrew doesn’t know what to think of that. Not yet. 

Andrew grows tired of turning and pulling and pushing at the possible what if’s and leaves his group to their silence to join Wymack in the front of the bus. He plops down near him, turns in his seat, puts his elbow on the seat in front of him to lean his cheek against his fist.

“Hey Coach,” he says and grins when Wymack sighs miserably. “Did you know that bears have 42 teeth?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for a brief mention of a suicide hotline and drug mentions.
> 
> also, this chapter is very early but i promise it has a reason. please enjoy.

Wymack makes an offhand comment about Neil’s wardrobe before Andrew leaves on Sunday to go back to the Fox Tower, something about how he’s been waiting for them to fix it since June and some extremely unfunny nonsense about him signing them up for a marathon if they don’t do something about it soon, and while Andrew knows that the second part is more said for show, he has held the five shirts Neil periodically wears throughout the weeks. 

It’s one of the reasons why he tells Nicky to drive by the campus and to the mall after practice on Tuesday and after they all pile into Andrew’s car, it’s exactly what he does. 

The other one being that Neil has absolutely nothing to wear for the banquet on Saturday, which isn’t something Andrew particularly cares about but Kevin does and Andrew is very much aware of the fact that Kevin would probably stomp his foot like an angry child if he found out. And that is something he wants to avoid at all costs, no matter how funny it is to see Kevin’s face flood with an irritated red flush. 

Andrew completely forgets to inform Neil of this, of course, and it’s definitely not on purpose, but that’s how he finds himself in one of the many clothing shops in their big mall. 

He pulls out a dark shirt, decides it’s horrifically ugly and an offense more than anything else and lets it drop to the ground. Then he does it again. And again with the next one. 

“At some point you’re going to have to try something on,” Nicky says from two steps away. He holds out something to Neil and when Andrew glances up to inspect the grey color and material of the dress shirt, Neil shakes his head and his cousin puts it back again. 

“I could just not go,” Neil says, sounding pained, and that is definitely not something that will happen if Andrew has any say in it. 

“Shut up, you’re going,” Kevin says from Andrew’s right and manages not to sound like he’s dreading it himself even if everyone knows he does. Since all fourteen southern Class I teams, including Edgar Allan’s Ravens, will be in attendance, Andrew can already imagine what an interesting disaster the banquet will be. “The other teams want to get a look at you.” 

“I don’t care,” Neil says and waves away another shirt Nicky holds out to him. “The only place they matter to me is on the court.” 

And that.. _almost_ sounds like the truth. It probably does sound like the truth to anyone but Andrew, because Andrew knows that undertone in Neil’s voice, recognizes it like he does with his own reflection when he looks into the mirror. He has heard fear one too many times (coming from others, coming from himself) not to be able to hear it when it’s not said out loud. It’s not really surprising that Neil is afraid considering that he managed to make himself a target of Riko Moriyama’s childish fury and considering that Riko’s family is exactly who Neil has been running from for the biggest part of his life. 

“Don’t lose face,” Andrew says and holds up a shirt. 

It’s a familiar shade of green, definitely not something Andrew would ever wear himself, and when he holds it near Kevin’s head, the corner of his mouth curls up at the sight of the green being the same as Kevin’s eyes. 

Almost a perfect match and very, very ugly. 

He tugs it off the hanger and drops it on the floor, makes it someone else’s problem before he sees Nicky with another shirt in his hand and throws the empty hanger at him. Much to his disappointment, Nicky lets out a squawk and manages to duck in time for it to miss him and hit the clothes behind him. 

Andrew shrugs at that and when he looks at Neil, he sees the same fear in his eyes that he had been able to hear a second ago. “You laughed at Riko on Kathy’s show,” he reminds him and grins at the memory of that. “If you don’t go, he’ll say you’re too afraid to face him!—” a frown appears between Neil’s eyebrows, another telling sign that Andrew is right and it makes his grin grow “—For same, Neil.” 

“Here,” Aaron says to Neil, appearing out of nowhere, and hands Neil a wrinkly scrap of paper. “Take this before I forget it.” 

Nicky leans over Neil when he opens it and groans when he takes a look at it. “Seriously, Aaron?” 

“Dan asked to get a list from Katelyn,” Aaron says and Andrew considers throwing the next empty hanger at his brother instead of letting it drop to the floor as a spark of anger comes alive inside of him before it’s gone in the next second. His grip on the hanger loosens and it falls to the floor. 

“Who are these people?” Neil asks. 

“They’re the single Vixens.” 

“They’re all women,” Nicky says and throws a hand over his eyes with another groan. “That doesn’t help us.” 

“Nicky,” Neil starts to say and then Nicky plugs the list from Neil’s fingers to crumple it up and throw it onto the floor where it joins the little pile of shirts at Andrew’s feet. “You’re ignorance is endearing, Neil. You’re nineteen and you’ve never looked at Allison’s tits? There’s no way you’re straight.” 

Another shirt falls to the floor as Andrew turns his head to hide how much his grin grows at those words. If not looking at Allison’s chest is Nicky’s telling sign of someone’s sexuality and disinterest in women and female aligned people, Andrew really doesn’t understand why his dear cousin has never commented about himself — not that he really wants him to. But then again, there _is_ a bet running on Andrew and Renee and Andrew is sure Nicky is convinced that they’re dating. 

“You know what, I’m done here,” Aaron says when Andrew tunes back into their conversation. Then he throws his hands up and turns away. “I’ll be in the food court when you guys are finished.” 

“Stop being a bad influence,” Kevin tells Nicky. “I am going to make him Court. It’ll be easier if he remains heterosexual.” Though Andrew understands what Kevin means with that, that it’s easier to be a successful athlete without anyone looking down at you for your sexuality, he really, really doesn’t like how Kevin says it and his grip on the pole holding the clothes tightens. “You know more than any of us how prejudiced people can be. Imagine the impact it would have on his career.” 

Andrew watches as Nicky puts his hands on either side of Neil’s head in a try to block out their argument, completely missing Neil’s ears by the absolute boredom Andrew can see on his face, and relaxes his grip again. 

“You worry about Neil’s career, I’ll worry about his personal happiness. Come on, Kevin,” Nicky then adds and tilts his head to the side. “Even you have to admit this is really weird.” 

“Newsflash, Nicky: Neil isn’t normal!” Andrew says and throws up his hands, throwing the hanger in his left hand behind him as he does. 

What he’s saying is nothing but the truth, even if it has his cousin frowning at him. No one who can be considered normal has the darkness in their eyes that Andrew has seen in Neil’s eyes and that mirrors the colorless void in himself. Neil, Andrew thinks, is too much like himself and Andrew is the last person anyone would call normal. 

“This is beyond abnormal.” 

“I am standing right here,” Neil says, “and I can hear you.” 

“Fine, fine,” Nicky says and sighs dramatically. “Take a cheerleader if you want to.” 

“I’m not taking anyone. I don’t even want to go to this thing.” 

“Do you have any idea how pathetic it is showing up stag to an event like this?” 

Neil lifts one eyebrow at that and Andrew cheerfully ignores the warmth filling his body when he sees it. Maybe Bee really had been sick when he saw her, and he actually did catch whatever it was that she had. “Are you bringing someone? What about Erik?” 

“He’s in Germany,” Nicky says. “Yeah, I’m bringing a date, but I’m not going to date the guy. I just want someone to go and have fun with. You know, fun? That thing people have sometimes?” When Neil doesn’t answer, Nicky groans yet again and it almost sounds like he’s in pain. Or as if he caught whatever sickness Bee had given Andrew on complete accident. “You two are impossible.” 

Neil turns to look at Andrew at that, as if the ‘two’ includes both of them, and Andrew almost considers opening his mouth when Kevin answers, “It’s none of your business.” 

“Three,” Neil corrects then and kills Nicky’s good humor when he says, “Allison.” He goes back to looking at the hangers in front of him as Nicky mutters something under his breath and walks a few feet away from them. He pushes a few around, looking as if his mind is miles away, and then looks up at Kevin. “Would you take her?” 

That is, all things considered, not a question Andrew has been expecting. Neither has he been expecting Neil’s interest in Allison’s wellbeing, though Andrew guesses that this is Neil trying to feel less guilt more than actual concern for their teammate. It just so happens that Neil doesn’t know that Allison doesn’t fault Neil for Seth’s death and the possible hand he had in playing into that, and that Andrew is not about to say that and ruin his own fun when he can just lean back and let this one unfold itself. 

Even if Neil turning the other way when he sees Allison and him avoiding being close to her as much as possible isn’t nearly as interesting as Neil using that sharp tongue of his. 

“She and Seth were excited to go,” Neil says when Kevin doesn’t say anything. “It was all they could talk about when we had lunch together. Now she’s going to go and he won’t be there.” 

“That’s a cheap way out,” Andrew says, because it is. The more expensive way, the harder way, would be to talk to Allison, but since that is not something he can see happen anytime soon, he lets his amusement show in a mocking smile. “Getting someone else to clean up behind your mess?” he asks and then continues before Neil has a chance to answer. “Oh, Neil. Do better next time, won’t you? You’re boring when your tail’s between your legs.”

“Fuck you,” Neil says and narrows his eyes in a glare and Andrew thinks, oh hello. “Your theory is still just that: a theory. When you prove it--” 

“What, it’ll miraculously make it easier for you to look Allison in the eyes?” Andrew asks with feigned shock. He knows it will do much more than that, and nothing will get easier when his theory gets proven to be true -- because he knows that it will. No, it will be the exact opposite and Andrew knows Neil’s not stupid enough to not realize this. 

“When I prove it, it puts a target on Seth’s back and a paintbrush in your hands.” In his free hand, since his other hand is already holding one. One that is still wet and full of color from the target Neil had managed to put on his own back not even a month ago. “Rethink that a bit, would you?” 

Andrew waits a few seconds for Neil to answer and then snorts when he doesn’t and loses interest in being around both him and Kevin, who had been watching them talk with one of his ugly frowns that makes him appear way older than he actually is. He turns until Nicky is in his sight and makes his way over to him. 

“Andrew?” Nicky asks when he looks up and sees him. There is a small pile of shirts and pants over his right arm and Andrew runs his eyes over them for a second before he pulls out his phone and holds it up in explanation as he walks by. “Oh, you’re getting the phone? Why don’t you take Neil with you?” 

“Who?” 

“Neil.” 

“What?” 

“Andrew.” 

“Yes, now you got it. I’m Andrew!” Andrew wiggles his fingers at his cousin over his shoulder as he walks by, his lips curling up into a grin. “Don’t go around confusing me with Neil, alright?”

He leaves before Nicky has a chance to answer and almost bumps into a middle aged woman who turns to glare at him. Andrew grins at her, showing off his teeth, and keeps walking. In the opposite direction of the food court where he can make out Aaron standing in line behind a group of teenagers, behind a small bakery in the middle of the way, there is a technic shop and Andrew enters it. 

Andrew remembers Renee telling him that there is a bet running on the choice of phone Neil will have, and he lets his grin grow a little wider as he looks down at the black phone in his hand before he starts walking down the aisles. 

It doesn’t take him more than five minutes to find the mirror image of his own phone on display further in the back and he bends down to inspect the colors of the ones in stock. Red is there, which would be a little too aggressive, and so is green, which makes Andrew think of Kevin’s stupid eyes and almost has him dropping it to the floor. Then there’s white, which, in Andrew’s honest opinion, is a color way too bright and pure for someone like Neil. 

The last two phones are in black and grey, and since Andrew doesn’t want poor Neil to get their phones confused, he grabs the grey one. He doesn’t have to get an extra SIM since there is already one included, and so he makes his way to the register and pays quickly with his own money. 

Andrew goes to the set of escalators near the bakery and walks to the towering fountain that marks the mall’s center to sit down and wait. He rips the package of the phone open and stuffs the plastic into the small bag he had gotten from the shop and powers on the phone. 

Since Andrew has the same phone, it’s easy for him to save a few numbers; starting with his own before he puts it as a speed dial. Then Kevin’s, Nicky’s, Wymack’s and even Aaron’s, though he highly doubts that this one will be needed. And because Andrew knows Neil doesn’t like Bee, he saves her number too and is in the middle of setting her as emergency contact when he sees the others approach out of his peripheral vision. 

Three bags get dropped on the ground in front of Andrew and then Nicky leans over them to get a better look of the phone.“What is this dinosaur? No one put money on a flip phone, Andrew. You ruined a really good pot.” 

Which is exactly why Andrew picked this one, not that Nicky needs to know that. “So sad.” 

“You couldn’t have found him a qwerty?” 

“What for?” Andrew asks when he sets a ringtone for Neil with a few clicks. He snaps it shut and tosses it in Neil’s direction, who manages to catch it before it has a chance to fall onto the floor. “Who is Neil going to text?” 

“Um, me, for starters,” Nicky says. 

“What.” Neil asks, though it doesn’t sound like a question and Andrew watches as he looks down at the phone. And completely freezes on the spot. It’s different from the way the froze before he entered Wymack’s apartment after Andrew picked him up from the airport, and Andrew notices it immediately at the way Neil’s breathing gets a little faster, at the way the color drains completely from his face, at the way his fingers curl tightly around the phone. 

This, Andrew thinks and doesn’t look away as Nicky says Neil’s name again and again, is something that looks more like something extremely close to a very, very small panic attack. 

“Neil,” Nicky says again, an obvious tinge of concern audible in his voice and Neil looks up. His eyes are wide and his mouth is open and where he had reminded Andrew of a deer caught in headlights multiple times before, he now resembles a cornered animal, a scared animal, more than anything else. 

And that is interesting considering a phone the size of Andrew’s hand is responsible for it. He’s sure there’s a story behind it, a reason for this small breakdown, and Andrew cannot wait to get his fingers on it. To hold it in his hands and push and pull and turn and twist until it fits the puzzle that makes up Neil Josten or fits into one of the locks on the door Neil is hiding behind. 

Neil’s adam apple jumps as he swallows hard and then he holds out the phone, now completely covered by his hand. “No.” 

Nicky holds up his hands at that. “Neil,” he says and he says it very slowly and quietly, “we kind of need you to hold onto that. We need a way to get in touch with you this year.” 

“You have this way of making people want to kill you,” Andrew says and doesn’t take his eyes off Neil as he does. The truth doesn’t manage to make the spooked look in Neil’s eyes go away and Andrew leans forward a little. Puts his hands on his knees to drum his fingers on them. 

“What if Coach needs to talk to you about something or Riko’s freaky fans start causing trouble?” Nicky asks, his hands still in the air. “Last year got really crazy toward the end, and this year isn’t off to a good start. That’s our just-in-case. You’ll make us all feel better if we know we can find you.” 

“I can’t,” Neil says and the words sound like they hurt on the way up, as if they had been snatched and pulled out of his throat and left it raw and bleeding afterward. It sounds like the truth and Neil looks like he’s going to be sick. “Nicky, I—”

And that’s weird, Andrew thinks. For someone who went toe to toe with a member of the family he’s trying to stay hidden from, and on live television no less, this reaction to a phone is weird and so terribly interesting that Andrew can’t help but grin. 

“Okay, okay,” Nicky says and covers Neil’s hand with both of his. “We’ll figure it out.” 

Neil, however, doesn’t look like he wants to figure out anything right now and instead tugs his hands free to grab the bags of clothes from the floor. Before he has a chance to ask for the car keys, and because Andrew knows that he will (because Andrew knows the exhaustion that a panic attack, small and short as this one might’ve been, brings), Andrew leans to his side and pulls them out Nicky’s pocket to hold them out. 

He keeps holding on to them for a moment when Neil grabs them, ignores the heat radiating off Neil’s skin and making him feel like his whole body is on fire, and looks at the wild look in Neil’s eyes. Andrew looks at Neil’s white cheeks and leans forward to smile at Neil. “Hey, Neil,” he says and lets his amusement show in his growing smile when Neil meets his gaze, irises surrounded by the faintest line in a hint to his contact lenses. “Honesty looks awful on you.” 

Andrew laughs when Neil narrows his eyes in a glare, weak as it is, and turns around to walk away. He keeps his eyes on Neil, on the too fast and too long strides he’s taking, at the bags swinging from his arm and hitting his hips, until he completely vanishes from his sight. 

*

Andrew makes the choice to miss his dose at nine, which is ages from when he goes to the court with Kevin and Neil, to have a clear head. He knows it will come to bite him in the ass, seeing as he will be out with them until midnight, but Andrew really can’t bring up the energy to care. He shoos Kevin out of the changing room with his clothes scattered on the bench before he’s completely ready and then straddles one of the benches as he waits. Neil’s phone lands on the bench in front of him after he pulls it out of his pocket. 

It doesn’t take too long before the door to the bathroom opens and Neil comes out with half the gear for his night practice with Kevin already covering his body. Andrew watches as his gaze travels to the device in front of him before he looks up at Andrew. 

There it is again, the wide eyed, haunted look. The honest look. 

“A man can only have so many issues,” Andrew says when he grows bored of seeing it. He doesn’t acknowledge how hypocritical it is, coming from him. 

“I don’t need a phone.” 

“Who needs one moire than you do this year?” Andrew asks him and then takes out his own phone to put it besides Neil before he gets an answer. Mainly because he doesn’t need an answer to it, because there isn’t one. No other person managed to piss off someone like Riko Moriyama with half of the world watching. He flicks both phones open with his thumbs and sets his own back down before he opens Neil’s contact list and hits the green call button. A few seconds later, Andrew’s phone starts to ring and the same song he had programmed as Neil’s ringtone blares from the speakers. 

The lyrics don’t mean too much to Andrew, but they do to Neil because they’re telling the person the song is about, the person listening to it, to run, run, run, run, runrunrun. And they have the effect Andrew had been aiming for when he programmed it, which shows in a widening of Neil’s eyes for all but a second. Then he crosses the room, comes closer to Andrew, and sits down on the bench before scooping up Andrew’s phone and rejecting the call. 

“You’re not funny,” Neil tells Andrew, which is something Andrew knows he personally would’ve disagreed with had he taken his pills at the right time but completely agrees with now. 

“Neither are you. You put a noose around your neck and handed the loose end to Riko,” Andrew says and looks at Neil’s left eye. His right one. His left one again. “I distinctly remember saying I would watch your back,” he says and it’s only a half-lie but Andrew doesn’t feel like getting into the topic of his memory with Neil. Not now, not ever. “Give me one good reason why you’d make that difficult for me.” 

“I survived for eight years because no one could find me.” 

“That’s not why,” Andrew says and means earlier, a few hours ago, in the mall, as his tongue forms the words. While it might be the truth, Andrew highly doubts that this is why Neil was so close to an actual panic attack. Why he was standing on a cliff with the toes of his shoes already hovering over nothing, with only the back of his feet still on solid ground, and one wrong move from falling to the ground and into a full blown breakdown, and they both know it. 

“Are we doing the honesty thing again?” 

“Do we need to?” Andrew asks as he takes his phone back and knows the answer without Neil having to answer. He doubts that Neil would spit out something as valuable as a truth without getting anything in return. “You start.” 

Neil puts one of his long, long fingers on the bench next to his phone and uses it to let it spin in circles on the bench. “You know, most parents give their children phones so they can keep track of them throughout the day. I had one because of the people my father worked with. My parents wanted to know they could reach me if the worst should happen.” The phone spins faster on the bench as Neil repeats Nicky’s words, “‘Just in case.’”

“When I ran away,” Neil continues and Andrew raises his head to look into his face, lets the words wash over him, lets them enter his brain, lets them get caught by the net that doesn’t let anything escape, “I kept the phone.I saw my parents die, but I kept thinking maybe I was wrong. Maybe one day they’d call and say it was an act. They’d say I could come home and that things would be fine—” Oh, someone should really, really tell Neil that nothing will ever be fine for people like them “—But the only time it rang it was that man demanding I bring him back his money.” 

Andrew blinks and takes the information. Grabs it with both hands and pulls it in all directions for a possible hole in the story, for a possibility that this isn’t the truth, but it perfectly explains why Neil had reacted the way he did earlier and why he looks at the phone as if it will explode in his face. It clicks together with what happened earlier like one piece of the puzzle with the other. 

“I shouldn’t have one now. Who am I supposed to call?” 

“Nicky, Coach, the suicide hotline,” Andrew tells him. “I don’t care.” 

“I’m remembering why I don’t like you,” Neil says and that—

—that is interesting, maybe more so than the little act in the mall had been. Because this sounds like Neil had forgotten that he did dislike Andrew. Interesting, Andrew thinks as he watches the brown blinking back at him from Neil’s eyes, and dangerous. 

“I’m surprised you forgot in the first place.” 

“Maybe I didn’t,” Neil says and contradicts his own words but before Andrew has a chance to think about that, Neil pushes his phone in Andrew’s direction. “There has to be a better way.” 

“You could occasionally grow a spine,” Andrew suggests because phones are the easiest way to stay in contact. Another way would be to chain them to each other and Andrew really, really doesn’t need someone as irritating, as infuriating and weirdly fascinating, as Neil around him at absolutely all times. “I know it’s a difficult concept for someone whose knee-jerk reaction is to run away at the first sign of trouble, but try it sometime. You might actually like it.” 

Neil glares at him,a stark difference from how he’d been looking down at the silver phone on the bench one moment ago. “What I’d like is to put this phone through your teeth.” 

“See, that’s more interesting.” 

“I’m not here for your entertainment,” Neil says and yet he’s still proving to be more and more entertaining the more time passes. 

“But, as expected, you are talented enough to multitask. Question for you, Neil. Do I look dead to you?” He points at his own face and when Neil doesn’t answer, says, “here.” 

He crooks one finger at him in a demand to come closer and when Neil does, he flips his phone open and presses down on the button with the one long and hard enough that it starts dialing. 

Another second later Neil’s phone starts ringing on the bench between them, it blares the same song Andrew has as his own ringtone, but starts on another part. The lyrics are almost the same, though, and they say to run, run, runrunrun. 

“Your phone is ringing,” Andrew says, pointing out the obvious when he grows bored of Neil just staring down at the silver device. “You should answer it.” 

Neil picks it up slowly and opens it. Spares the screen a quick glance before he answers it and lifts it to his ear. 

“Your parents are dead, you are not fine and nothing is going to be okay,” Andrew tells him, quiet enough that Kevin won’t be able to hear it from where he’s probably walking up and down the hallway outside the door. “This is not news to you. But from now on until May you are still Neil Josten and I am still the man who said he would keep you alive.” 

He takes a moment to stare hard at the top of Neil’s head. “I don’t care if you use this phone tomorrow. I don’t care if you never use it again. But you are going to keep it on you because one day you might need it.” Andrew reaches out and puts one finger underneath Neil’s chin, lets the spark from the skin contact dance along his skin and lets it set him on fire from the inside out, and pushes Neil’s head up. 

Something inside of him, the soul Andrew didn’t think he had, stretches all the way, the short, short way, to Neil like a piece of gum. It gets pulled like a rubber band, it gets thinner and thinner and if Andrew doesn’t try to stop it, he knows it will snap in half and leave him with less than he has and with the other hand in Neil’s hand. Andrew doesn’t think he likes this. No, he doesn’t like this at all. 

But he looks into Neil’s eyes, at the brown that looks oddly wrong blinking back at him. “On that day, you’re not going to run. You’re going to think about what I promised you and you’re going to make the call.” Andrew waits a moment. “Tell me you understand.” 

Neil blinks at him. Once. Twice. And then nods. 

It’s all Andrew needs as confirmation, so he lets go of Neil and snaps his phone shut. A quiet click echoes around the room as Neil shuts his own. Andrew watches as Neil looks down at it before he puts it in his messenger bag and the tip of his finger feels like he dipped it into boiling water. And when Neil looks at him again, there is a look in his eyes that Andrew hasn’t seen before, one that makes him sigh as he leans out of Neil’s space. “If you’re done having issues, take your turn. Kevin is probably fuming waiting on you.”

“Why did the Oakland PD call you?” 

“Right for the throat.” Amusement shatters apart inside of Andrew, shatters like glass and the shards press against his skin and through the silence inside of his head with enough force that he can feel the corner of his mouth curling up. “Maybe not so spineless after all,” he muses and thinks back to his phone call with Higgins. “Children’s Services is opening an investigation into one of my foster fathers. Pig Higgins knew I lived with them, so he called me looking for testimony.” 

“But you won’t help them,” Neil says, and it’s not a question but sounds like he is trying to connect dots with each other. 

Andrew waves his hand in dismissal at that. “Richard Spear is an uninteresting but relatively harmless human being. They won’t find anything to pin on him.” 

“You sure?” Neil asks. “Your reaction was a little extreme for a misunderstanding.” 

The blood inside of Andrew’s veins freezes, it turns into ice for all but a moment but it’s enough to put goosebumps on his skin, to make a shutter run down his spine. “I don’t like that word.” 

Neil tilts his head a little. “Extreme?” 

Andrew clenches his teeth. “Misunderstanding.” 

“It’s an odd word to have a grudge against.” 

“You don’t have any room to judge other people’s problems,” Andrew says and swings his legs over the bench to stand up. That conversation toed a little too close to territory that Andrew would rather leave untouched for the rest of time, and he knows that if Neil senses that, he will get curious and Andrew really can’t have that. So he leaves and passes Kevin on the way to his usual place on the stands where he sits and listens to the silence is his mind as he tilts his head back to watch the stars. 

*

On Wednesday morning, Andrew tells Nicky to bother Neil as much as possible through text messages in a form of speed therapy. Because he knows from Neil’s reaction in the mall and from what Neil had told him the night before that Neil will most likely not touch the phone if there aren’t any messages or calls, or _anything_ , coming in, and much less to call for help when he needs it. 

He doesn’t say the last part, the therapy part, but he doesn’t have to, as it turns out. During the following days, he watches as his cousin types on his phone, sends multiple messages at once and then puts it away only to pull it out again a second later. 

It kind of reminds him of a puppy with a new toy. He doesn’t really know what to think of that and cheerfully decides to just ignore his cousin. 

They all board the bus late on Friday afternoon to drive to Columbia for their game and Andrew is behind Nicky, which means that when Nicky stops in front of the bus, Andrew absolutely walks smack into his cousin and makes him stumble on complete accident. 

“Coach,” Nicky says when he’s done flailing around and then lets his eyes go wide in the same way little kids do to ask for stuff. “Say, isn’t it, like, possible for us to drive separately to Columbia?” 

Wymack doesn’t even look up from the clipboard he’s holding. “No.”

“But Coach—” 

Wymack rolls his eyes in the direction of the horizon above them and sighs. “You know I frankly don’t give a single shit what you idiots get up to in your free time as long as you stay out of trouble.” He looks at Nicky and Andrew rolls forth and back on the balls of his feet. Aaron goes into the bus, followed by Neil and Kevin. 

“But if, for any fucking reason and we all know how high the chance of this is, the officials at the banquet think that your dumbass of a cousin here—” he nods at Andrew and Andrew grins and waves at him “—is off his drugs, they can and will push for blood work to be done and I don’t want any of your dust bullshit to show up in the results if they do.” 

He looks at both of them and then asks, “Understood?” 

Nicky curses under his breath but nods and then goes inside the bus, still mumbling profanities and frowning. 

“Aye, aye captain!” Andrew says because he agrees with what Wymack had said and dragging himself to the club after a game where he will go through withdrawal really doesn’t sound like much fun to him anyway. He salutes at Wymack before entering the bus himself and sitting down in his usual place, where he claims his usual place in the last row. 

The sun is slowly starting to set, and it makes everything and the clouds look as if someone had bumped against several buckets of paints and spilled them all over the canvas that the horizon is. 

Andrew cheerily starts counting the colors in his head and drums the tips of his fingers against the glass of the window as he lets the sounds of his cousin talking to Neil lull him into a trance like state.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i already said, this chapter is out way sooner than i usually upload and it’s because i will be taking a very short break from updating daily. 
> 
> the whole fic is already done, wrapped up, whatever you wanna call it, but i didn’t take into consideration that this (putting out my writing, which means a lot to me — as it does with a lot of other authors as well) would take as much of a mental toll on me as it does because i get worried about interactions and the stupidest shit. 
> 
> which! sucks (greatly, even) but it won’t last for long and i promise the next chapter won’t come late. just a little later than usual by a few days (maybe two or three, if i’m able to bounce back as quickly as i hope to). 
> 
> regardless of all that, i do hope you guys enjoyed reading this chapter and you’re always welcome to share your thoughts in the comments — i appreciate that a lot and thank you.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for alcohol, the ravens, riko, jean (sigh. french people) and tetsuji.
> 
> please enjoy reading!

They pull onto the interstate on Saturday for their four hour trip to Blackwell University with thirteen people including the Foxes, Abby and Wymack and the dates. Nicky brings someone called Jim from his improv class and Andrew cheerily ignores the cheerleader that scoots into the row he can see from his place at the back of the bus after Aaron.. 

There is a handcuff around his wrist, one he attached there himself when he made a promise to his brother, and the matching one is around Aaron’s. The chain connecting them should be enough for Andrew to yank on when Aaron steps out of line, when he doesn’t do what their promise meant to do, but he has long lost interest in people who aren’t able to keep their promises to him. And just because Aaron might take a saw and try to free himself does not mean that Andrew will remove the metal rubbing the skin around his wrist raw before his end of the promise is fulfilled. 

And the cheerleader matters as much to Andrew as she should to Aaron with that same promise still between them, with Aaron tugging and pulling on the chain, and that is: not at all. There shouldn’t be anyone there, least of all a _woman_ , and that’s the exact reason why Andrew happily pretends that she isn’t there and looks through and around her like she actually isn’t there. 

Andrew keeps his head turned to look out of the window and glances down at the cars passing them, at the grass on the side of the road, the few flowers still blooming between the vibrant greens, at the leaves of trees swaying in all directions when they get hit by a breeze. He starts counting and drums his fingers on the window lightly, glances at the seat in front of him as he does so. 

It will only be a matter of time until Kevin’s fear of not only Riko but his entire former team and their Coach, Tetsuji Moriyama, take hold of him and dangle Kevin over the cliff of a panic attack. 

The perfect mask of cool indifference Kevin wears everyday doesn’t start cracking in the middle like a dry piece of wall and slips down until they pass a sign that points the way to Blackwell and are shortly after able to spot the football and Exy stadium of the campus, which is exactly when Kevin’s breaths start to come way too short, too ragged, and in the perfect form of entertainment for Andrew’s boredom. 

“Hey, hey,” Andrew says and folds his arms over the cushion of Kevin’s seat to look down at the rather pathetic and completely different form from the Exy star he makes with his knee hugged to his chest and his face hidden in the fold of his arm. His knuckles are white where his hand is clenched into a fist. “You’ll tear something if you keep breathing like that, Kevin.” 

Kevin doesn’t answer and his shoulders keep moving up and down with his erratic breathing. 

“Look at me,” Andrew says as he looks down at his dark hair and feels a sliver of regret that he didn’t take the time to rip apart a tissue to let it rain on Kevin’s head. That would probably be distracting enough for Kevin to look up. “It’ll be fine,” Andrew says and what he doesn’t say is that Kevin will be fine. Because Andrew will be there and Andrew made a promise to Kevin and Andrew won’t let anyone, much less Riko Moriyama, lay a finger on him. “You believe me, yes?” 

“I believe you,” Kevin says and even with his voice muffled and strained, Andrew can hear the lie in it. If he actually believed Andrew, he wouldn’t be this close to having a panic attack. On his way to have one, yes, but there would be a bigger distance, a much needed bit of space, between him and it actually happening. 

It’s more amusing than anything else, because, really, Andrew has never broken a single promise in his life so why would he start now, and he pushes out a laugh. “Liar.” 

When he leans forward to look out of Kevin’s window, he can see that they aren’t the first team to arrive, but not the last one either. Smack in the middle of the parking lot are three black busses, and the only hint of color is a splash of horrible dark red around the silhouette of a raven. It’s probably one of the ugliest things Andrew has ever seen, which means a lot considering that the bus Wymack parks as far away from Edgar Allan as possible is bright orange. 

As soon as the bus starts humming underneath his feet, Andrew looks up to see Wymack walking down the aisle with Abby’s travel bag in one of his hands. 

“Off the bus,” he tells the others and they all, minus Neil, obediently file off as soon as he passes them. When he reaches Kevin’s row, Wymack opens the bag and pulls out a bottle of vodka that he puts down next to the striker. 

“You have ten seconds to inhale as much of this as you can,” he says and holds up a finger to tap it against the watch around his wrist. “I’m timing you. Go.” 

Seeing how much alcohol Kevin can drink when he needs an emotional crutch would probably be alarming for everyone else, but Andrew just feels a tugging on the corner of his mouth as Wymack pries the bottle from Kevin’s desperate fingers after his time is up. Kevin smears a hand across his mouth to dry it and looks out of the window, a sick look on his face. 

“Kevin,” Wymack says and puts the bottle away again. The sound of Abby’s bag getting zipped closed incredibly loud in the silence of the bus. “You stay as far away from Riko Moriyama and his bullshit as possible, do you understand me?” 

Andrew opens his mouth to say something, because he honestly doubts anything like that will work out when the chances of Kevin still running like a dog when Riko calls is too high for his liking, but Wymack points at him with a finger and Andrew snaps it shut again. Even pretends like he’s closing a zipper and locking it before dropping the invisible key on Kevin’s head. 

“We are gonna go in there and have a nice evening and then leave. You won’t be alone in there, you understand me? There are twelve other teams, not only us and them. And this maniac won’t leave your side for even a second. No bullshit,” Wymack says again and looks at Andrew when he does. 

“Oh, but Coach,” Andrew says when he gets suddenly bored of listening to Wymack state things that should be obvious and moves to get out of the bus, motioning for Kevin to follow. “When have I ever disappointed you?” 

“I’m not answering that.” 

Cool air creeps under Andrew’s clothes when his feet make contact with the solid ground of the parking lot and a shiver works its way down his back as he grabs his clothes and then follows as a security guard escorts them all the way around to the away side so that they can get changed. 

He definitely, absolutely doesn’t try to trip Kevin on _purpose_ as they walk. That’d be just silly. 

By the time they’re all dressed, the alcohol seems to have a good grip on Kevin’s emotional and mental state judging from the steady and impatient look he sends Andrew’s way before they leave the dressing room. In the main room, there’s a closet with a big sign that has their team name printed on it, and Andrew guesses it’s for safekeeping of personal things when the others put stuff inside that Andrew really isn’t interested in. His phone and armbands stay exactly where they belong and where he can grab for them if the need arises. 

Wymack does a quick headcount once the closet is locked and then looks at Andrew. Andrew is tempted to look behind him when he sees the question in the older man’s eyes but sends him one of his grins instead that has him nodding.

“You,” Wymack says and turns to Neil, “attempt to behave this time. Don’t pick fights with him today.” 

“Yes, Coach,” Neil says and sounds like he absolutely doesn’t mean it. Andrew almost hopes that he doesn’t mean it because Neil’s sharp tongue does make for some entertaining moments. 

Wymack looks as skeptical as when Andrew grinned at him, but he doesn’t argue. “Let’s go, then.” 

The Blackwell stadium is eerily quiet when they get closer, and everyone that had arrived before them is already on the court. Thick, cushioned mats cover the polished floor to keep table legs and chairs from scraping up the wood and they make Andrew feel like he’s stepping on clouds. 

With fourteen teams and another ninety (plus or minus) people in dates and stuff present, it means that there are a little over three hundred people on the court and there’s weirdly still enough room to walk around between the tables. Maybe Andrew will even be able to swing his arms wildly while doing so. 

They get shooed inside as soon as Wymack has the court door open and then he leaves them with a jerk of his chin in a silent command to keep moving and joins the small group of coaches right inside the door with Abby on his heels. 

Andrew looks out at the paper banners in all of the school colors that have been draped over the backs of chairs and easily finds a short line of orange chairs. Then his eyes wander to the other side of the table, to all of the black, to the row of people sitting in the exact same pose as if they’re clones of each other, at Riko Moriyama, and a short burst of hot anger comes alive inside of him before a wave of amusement washes it away. Because of course Riko got his fingers on the seat plan and changed it to his wishes. 

“Motherfucker,” Dan says, having catched on to the fact that this evening is most likely not going to end peacefully. 

“Oh, how cliche,” Andrew says and lets his humour show in his voice, because it is incredibly cliche. Especially with all of the Ravens sitting in the exact same pose. Chins pillowed on the same hand and all that. “Maybe this will be fun after all. Come on, Kevin,” he says and curls one finger. “Let’s not keep them waiting.” 

A quick headcount tells Andrew that the Ravens didn’t bring dates, which isn’t too surprising to him because a person whose only passion and obsession is Exy, someone who lives and breathes Exy, doesn’t sound very appealing to him either. 

“Riko,” Dan says and pulls out the chair directly opposite of him. “Dan Wilds.” 

Riko doesn’t say anything in return and holds his hand out, arm straight and wrist loose, as if he expects that Dan is going to bend down and kiss his hand in greeting. He smiles when Dan squeezes his hand and lets go again. It’s a small and cold thing, like a lake glazed over with a thin layer of ice in the beginning of winter -- not thick enough to allow people to step onto it without breaking through the surface and hurting themselves, but cool anyway. 

It goes on Andrew’s nerves in the matter of seconds. 

“I know who you are,” Riko says. “Who here doesn’t? You’re the woman who captains a Class I team.” And then he proves what Andrew had said to Neil on the night a warm key had left his hand and been pressed into Neil’s; that Riko might not be important enough to be a serious problem (yet), but that he is important enough and nosy enough to get his fingers on anything he can find. “You’ve done admittedly well despite your disadvantages.” 

“What disadvantages?” 

“Do you really want me to start listing them?” Riko asks and waves his hand to the left and then to the right. “This is only a two-day event, Hennessey.” 

“Careful, Riko,” Matt starts but Dan touches his arm shortly and then sits down. The upperclassmen sit down to her left, with Matt directly next to her, then Allison and then Renee. Aaron sits on Dan’s other side with Nicky on his right and then Neil and Kevin. Andrew sits down on the last free chair to Kevin’s right and picks up the fork laying next to an empty plate to twirl it on the table. 

Not even one second later the man on Riko’s right stands up. There is a three tattooed high on his cheekbone, branding him as someone Riko chose for his perfect court, and his name comes to Andrew in a heartbeat. 

Jean Moreau, the Raven’s starting backliner and something like Kevin’s old friend and maybe replacement, walks behind his teammates until he’s across from Neil and gets the woman out of her chair with a two finger tap on her shoulder. 

Andrew stops spinning his fork and cocks his head to the side as Jean sits down and then leans forward as the rest of the Ravens, minus Riko, lean back in their seats. 

“You look familiar,” Jean says in heavily accented English and considers Neil with a look that has something hot and uncomfortable uncurl inside of Andrew’s stomach. 

“If you watched Kathy’s show, you saw me there,” Neil says. 

“Ah, you are right,” Jean says and there’s the smallest smirk dancing at the corner of his mouth. Andrew wonders if trying his luck and stabbing Jean with his fork would go against Wymack’s no-bullshit rule when Jean opens his mouth again. “That must be it.” 

“What was your name again?” he asks and keeps going before Neil has the chance to answer. “Alex?” Andrew watches as Neil freezes on the spot. “Stefan?” His eyes go wide, they go wild and it’s a look Andrew has seen before exactly once. “Chris?” 

And then the blood drains from Neil’s face as if someone had pulled the plug from a bathtub filled with paint in the exact shade of Neil’s color. 

Andrew is, once again, reminded of something he had said to Neil weeks ago. Riko cannot risk disqualifying them, no, he can’t risk another one of the Foxes dying if he wants to face off against Kevin. But what he can do is make their lives a living hell, or as much of a living hell as they allow him to make it, and since Riko is a bit of an egotistical psychopath, Andrew doesn’t doubt that he doesn’t shy back from poking his nose into everything he is able to find, and Andrew doesn’t expect it to be a small amount of dirt that will get dug up.

Which is, most likely, what this is: something from Neil’s past coming to say hello, and Andrew knows how that feels, how unpleasant it is, but Neil seems to take it harder than Andrew would’ve — not that that surprises him by much. 

Neil takes a shuddering breath. Swallows. Swallows again. Says, “It’s Neil.” 

“Hmm?” Jean tilts his head to one side and Andrew puts his head straight again. “You don’t look much like a Neil.” 

“Blame my mother,” Neil says and he sounds like saying it hurts on the way up from his throat. “She named me.” 

Riko folds his hands on the table, the right one over the left, and lets his fingertips run over his skin in the exact place Kevin’s scars are. “How is she doing, by the way?” 

“Don’t antagonize my team,” Dan says before Neil has a chance to answer. “This isn’t the place for it.” 

“I was being polite,” Riko says, and from anyone else it might’ve been the truth but with what Andrew knows, about Riko and about Neil’s parents, he knows it’s nothing more than a lie. “You haven’t seen me antagonistic yet.” 

Jean looks a little to the left. “Hello, Kevin.” 

“Jean,” Kevin says, oh so quietly. 

And then Jean starts to smile, it’s lazy and the look in his cloudy eyes is almost as cold as Riko’s little smile had been a few minutes ago. Andrew’s grip on the fork tightens at the way Kevin looks down, onto his hands resting in his lap, and he remembers (and isn’t that a thing that happens a lot because he cannot forget) Kevin telling him, voice shaking and breaking like thin twigs in a storm, that Jean had refused to go with him. 

“Jean,” Andrew says, suddenly bored of the one sided staredown and lets his fork clatter onto the table again. “Hey, Jean.” Jean still stares at Kevin and Andrew considers throwing the napkin next to his plate at him. “Jean Valjean.” He should really, really stop looking at Kevin like that, shouldn’t he? “Hey. Hey. Hello.”

Jean huffs in annoyance and then, finally, looks away from Kevin. Andrew takes the chance to hold out his hand and a wave of amusement rolls over him when Jean actually lifts his own hand to put it in Andrew’s and then flinches and scowls as Andrew squeezes it, let’s the faint annoyance shimmering inside of him show. It makes Andrew’s smile grow, even if only a little. 

“I’m Andrew,” he says. “We haven’t met yet.”

“For which I am grateful,” Jean says and Andrew squeezes his hand just a little tighter. “The Foxes as a whole are an embarrassment to Class I Exy, but your very existence is unforgivable. A goalkeeper who doesn’t care if he is scored on—” oh, Andrew cannot wait for him to find out how much he cares for this stupid sport “—has no right to touch a racquet. You should have stayed on the sidelines like the publicity stunt you are.” 

“That’s a bit out of line, don’t you think?” Renee asks from somewhere on Andrew’s left, always so eager to defend Andrew when he doesn’t give much of a shit (read: none at all) about what others think of him. 

The woman in Jean’s old seat snorts loudly. “If someone like that replaced you in goal, you must be downright terrible. I can’t wait to watch one of your matches. I think it will be entertaining. We would make a drinking game of it but we don’t want to die of alcohol poisoning.” 

“Yeah,” Dan says, voice heavy with sarcasm, “that’d be a shame.” 

“This is the first time our teams have met,” Renee says, too polite and soft spoken for someone that mirrors Andrew in more ways than his own twin brother does. “Do we have to start off so poorly?” 

“Why not? You’re poor at everything else you do,” the woman says and huffs. “Is it honestly fun to be so terrible?”

“I imagine we have more fun than you do, yes,” Renee says and Andrew doesn’t have to lean to the front or back, doesn’t have to see her at all, to hear the smile in her voice. 

“Fun is for children,” Jean says and turns, opens his mouth as if he’s going to continue talking but then just stops when he looks at Renee. His eyes widen a little, his mouth opens the smallest bit more. 

Andrew lets go of Jean’s hand to wipe it on his pants before he completely crushes the backliner’s hand. He can’t imagine Wymack being happy with that, not that something like that ever stopped him before, but he also knows Kevin definitely wouldn’t be happy with that and that Renee can handle herself. 

Riko moves, and it’s not a big motion, nothing too obvious and barely there, but Andrew has spent too much time paying attention to other people in his life to miss it and it’s enough to get Jean to talk again. “At this level it is supposed to be about skill, and your team is sadly lacking. You have no right to play with us.” 

That is honestly one of the dumbest things Andrew has ever heard in his life, and considering that he lives not only with his cousin but also with Kevin, that says a lot. It’s not like all he said is wrong, the Foxes are lacking, and if it were any other team and if he wasn’t so bored by the conversation now that it’s about Exy, he’d point out how stupid their district change was then, but considering Riko’s need to win against Kevin, Andrew just picks up his fork again to spin it. 

“Then you should have transferred districts,” Matt says and then sighs. “No one wants you here.” 

“You took something that does not belong to you,” a Raven says. “You brought this year’s humiliation on yourselves.” 

“We didn’t take anything,” Dan says and it’s the truth; Kevin had come to the Foxes on his very own. “Kevin wants to be here.”

“Don’t tell me you really believe that,” a Raven down the line, probably the one sitting across from Renee if Andrew is counting right, says. And then goes on a rant about Kevin here and Kevin there that Andrew stops listening and twirls his fork a little faster until they mention how much the Foxes incompetence has to grate on Kevin. 

“So do we,” Aaron says and Andrew stops spinning the fork for a second. Then starts spinning it again, but faster. “It’s not like he’s shy with his opinion.” 

And then Kevin actually manages to open his mouth and Andrew looks up. “They know how I feel, but words alone won’t fix anything. A team that needs this much work requires a larger commitment than that.” 

“You won’t stay,” Jean says, and it doesn’t sound like a question or a prediction. It sounds like an order and Andrew decides that he really, really doesn’t like him. “You should reconsider our offer before we rescind it for good, Kevin. Face the facts. Your pet is and always will be dead weight. It’s time to—”

“What?” Andrew says and lets his fork clatter against the table again as he turns a wide-eyed look on Kevin. Because, really, what? A pet? There’s almost something like disappointment bubbling up inside of him at the weak insult. “You have a pet and you never told us?” The corner of his mouth twitches. “Where do you keep it, Kevin?”

Jean flicks him an annoyed look and Andrew grins wider. “Don’t interrupt me, Doe.” 

Nicky makes an offended sound from somewhere on his left, but Andrew shows Jean his teeth in imitation of a wide smile that almost splits his face in half. “Oh, points for trying, but save your breath,” he says because this doesn’t hurt him, nothing does. Not anymore. “Here’s a tip for you, okay?” He leans forward a little. “You can’t cut down someone who’s already in the gutter. You just waste your time and mine.” 

“Enough.” Dan snaps her fingers at both of them and Andrew throws his hands up in an innocent gesture that nobody believes. “Break it up. This is a district event and we have twenty officials on hand.We’re here to get to know each other, not to start fights. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” She glares at both of them and Andrew waves his hands back and forth. “That goes for both teams.” 

“Is that why your new child is being so quiet?” Riko lazily gestures in Neil’s direction. “He doesn’t have anything _nice_ to say?” 

“Leave him alone,” Matt says.

“He was very spirited the last time we met,” Riko says. “Perhaps that was just a show for the crowd?” He leans forward to wave a hand at Neil. “Hello, I am speaking to you.” He lets it drop again and clicks his tongue and Andrew takes a second to wonder if Riko could still click his tongue like that with a fork sticking out of his neck. “Are you really going to ignore me?”

Andrew can see Neil’s Adam's apple jump up and down as he swallows. A muscle in his jaw jumps, and amusement bubbling up inside of him again, Andrew starts counting down from ten and makes it to six before Riko opens his mouth again. 

“What a coward. Just like his mother.” 

“You know, I get it,” Neil says and Andrew doesn’t need to look to know that the darkness he had seen in Neil’s eyes, in Wymack’s apartment and then in their house in Columbia, is there again, but he does and he sees way more than that. He sees Neil turn from prey to predator again, only this time with less people witnessing it. “Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you’re worth a damn off the court — yeah, sounds rough.” Neil tilts his head, exposes the long like of his neck. “Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time.” 

“Neil,” Kevin says, low and frantic and Andrew thinks, _oh_. 

“I know it’s not entirely your fault that you are mentally unbalanced and infected with these delusions of grandeur, and I know you’re physically incapable of holding a decent conversation with anyone like any other normal human being can, but I don’t think any of us should have to put up with this much of your bullshit.” Neil glares at Riko and Andrew doesn’t look away as the warm, warm feeling shoots through his limbs again; he finds that he’s not able to look away. “Pity only gets you so many concessions, and you used yours up about six insults ago. So please, please, just shut the fuck up and leave us alone.” 

The Ravens on both sides of Riko stare at Neil, their symmetry shatters as jaws drop and eyes widen and Riko himself looks furious, furious enough that his expression would probably be able to freeze hell over. 

Neil leans over the table to look at Dan and then says, “Dan, I said please. I tried to be nice.” 

_Oh_ , Andrew thinks again and blinks with a grin growing on his face, _this is a problem._

“Matt,” Dan says and almost chokes on his name. “Matt, Coach. Get Coach. Oh my god.” 

“You can’t say things like that;” Jean says as Matt jumps up from his chair.

Andrew has the sudden urge to laugh and grabs his fork again. Spins it once. Twice. Lets it fall and finds that his eyes are drawn to Neil as if he’s a magnet and Andrew doesn’t think that he’s a fan of this. No, he doesn’t like this at all. 

“Then he shouldn’t have asked me to join the conversation,” Neil says as if it’s that simple and Andrew supposed that it is. “I was happy sitting here saying nothing.” 

Jean turns to Kevin and snaps something in French to which Kevin slowly replies in the same language. Jean says something again, sounding scandalized. Kevin says something again, and then Jean snaps something back. 

And then Neil joins their conversation, looking completely unfazed by the started look Jean sends him and Andrew blinks.

_Yes_ , he thinks as he watches their back and forth and their facial expressions as they change from confused to nauseous to hysterical, _this is a bigger problem than I thought it would be_. 

“What the hell is going on over here?” Andrew looks over his shoulder to see Wymack standing right behind Neil’s chair and lifts his hand in a cheerful wave at the annoyance on his face. It turns into anger when Jean says something in Japanese to anger and Kevin starts to answer in the same language. “On your feet,” he says then before Kevin can finish talking and motions to the Foxes. “Abby is talking to the event coordinators about finding us a new table.” 

Andrew stands up and walks two steps before he realizes that Kevin isn’t behind him and stops again. When he looks over his shoulder, Kevin is staring at the back of Neil’s head with a horrified expression and there’s annoyance sparking inside of Andrew when Kevin chokes out, “That’s not true.”

“Shut up,” Neil says, still looking at Jean when he says it. “Don’t say anything else.” 

And isn’t that curious? There seems to be something else entirely going on that Andrew misses because of the change in language and whatever it is is enough to make Kevin look like a deer walking on a frozen body of water. 

“Run along,” Jean says and Andrew doesn’t believe in regrets, never really has, but maybe he should have thrown the fork at him. “It’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?” 

There it is. Andrew had already known that the names Jean had thrown at Neil earlier (Alex? Stefan? Chris?) hadn’t been picked at random, not when Neil reacted like that, but those words, those seven words, confirm that not only Riko but also Jean know something about Neil’s past. It confirms that Riko really is as much of a psychopath as Andrew had thought him to be. 

Abby and Blackwell’s coach walk them to their new table and as soon as they’re sitting down, Kevin turns his back to Andrew. Then Neil says something in French to Kevin and Kevin answers, and Andrew can hear his name and he decides that he absolutely, strongly dislikes French. 

Whatever Neil says to Kevin is enough to have him get out of his chair fast enough to nearly trip and take the whole table with him. Andrew turns and watches with the corners of his mouth twitching upwards as Abby comes to his side and then hesitates to follow him when he leaves. 

“Go, Abby, go.” Andrew lifts both hands to shoo her away. He knows whatever this is, whatever this earlier was, is too much for Kevin to handle like this and Andrew also knows he won’t be able to help. But the bottle in Abby’s bag will. “Bring him back when he’s drunk. We’ve got Neil,” he says. What he doesn’t say is that he will keep his eye on him, that he can’t seem to stop keeping his eye on him. “Right, Neil?”

Neil nods and Abby doesn’t waste time to rush after the other striker with her bag tightly clutched in her hand. 

“Neil,” Dan then says and scoots into Kevin’s abandoned seat. “Are you okay?” 

“Does he look okay to you?” Andrew asks her and grins when she turns to glare at him. Really, what an awfully idiotic question. Neil’s pupils are blown wide enough that Andrew can make it out from where he’s leaning back until his chair is balancing on his hind legs. His shoulders are moving up and down in time with his fast breaths. His face is ashen, his jaw clenched when he looks at Andrew. Andrew lifts one of his hands but doesn’t bother lowering his voice when he says, “I told you so.” 

And Andrew did. He did tell Neil that Riko would do this. That Riko would find whatever he could get his hands on with the money he possesses and the power his last name brings. That Riko will try to break them, and especially Neil for humiliating him on live television, mentally instead of physically. That Riko would throw a tantrum and that it would be catastrophic.

“Sit down, Minyard,” Wymack snaps and Andrew sighs as he lets go and his chair falls back fast enough that his chest bumps into the table. “Did you or did you not tell me you weren’t going to start a fight?” 

“In Neil’s defense—” 

“I didn’t ask you,” Wymack says and interrupts Nicky. “Neil, talk to me.” 

There is a look in Neil’s eyes, the same one Andrew had seen before Seth had died, before Andrew had given him a key and offered his protection. His dark eyes start flickering around, exactly how they did a few weeks ago, quick enough to miss if you blink. Tension gathers in his shoulders, stretches the shirt he’s wearing only a little, and he turns in his seat and Andrew thinks _now._

“Neil, if you can’t be here say so,” Wymack tells him and Andrew tilts his head. Grins a little wider at Neil even though Neil doesn’t look back at him. “Abby can take you elsewhere until it’s time to leave.” He waits a second. “Get out of here and get some fresh air.” 

And that—that is an opening for Neil, and such a perfect one at that that Wymack might as well have brought it on a silver tablet. Andrew knows, he sees, that if Neil runs now, he won’t come back, not like how he did when Andrew watched him get smaller and smaller from his bedroom window. Because running is easier for Neil, that much Andrew has learned. It’s easier than anything else for him because he doesn’t know much else, much less trusting someone. Trusting someone else isn’t easy, Andrew knows, it’s hard and it’s like pulling teeth and breathing underwater. 

“No,” Neil says and looks up at Wymack. “I knew this was going to happen. I just wasn’t ready for him.” And then he adds, “I’m fine.” 

“What can I do?” Wymack asks. 

“I don’t know.” 

“When you know, tell me.” 

“Yes, Coach.” 

Another team arrives then, and it’s a distraction for the rest of the team and utterly boring for Andrew. It’s not much later when Kevin comes back, most likely with an ungodly amount of vodka in his system and on an open stomach but his actual health is of no concern to Andrew as long as no one is trying to poison him. 

Blackwell’s coach gives a speech about the season that bores Andrew half to death and he almost wishes they hadn’t traded seats because he has no interest in the team not sitting on the same table as the Foxes -- not that he has interest in the Ravens, but it was more entertaining. For Andrew, at least. After dinner, a crew clears the court and Wymack shoos the Foxes away once again.

“Go forth,” he tells them. “Have fun.” He looks at Andrew, Kevin and Neil. “Or don’t. I don’t care. Just no more fighting, you got me?” 

Dan and Matt immediately go to find a volleyball team, Nicky and Aaron tug their dates toward the dancefloor and Renee ushers Allison off the court which leaves Andrew, Kevin and Neil standing alone near Wymack. 

“You miss that one and need to hear it again?” 

“Oh, Coach.” Andrew tosses his hands up in a helpless shrug and snorts. “You can’t even imagine how much fun we are having right now.” It’s not a complete lie, seeing as Andrew is enjoying this evening and seeing other people freak out. “It’s overwhelming. Give us a minute to catch our breaths before our hearts explode in our chest.” 

“You have thirty seconds.” 

Andrew starts counting down in his head, more out of curiosity to see what Wymack will do when they don’t leave and he reaches zero, and makes it to ten before Kevin (of course it’s Kevin) walks off and he follows, like he always does. So does Neil, and off they go. Kevin puts on his mask again as they make their rounds on the court, the one that had slipped and cracked and shattered in the bus and is now whole again and shining and so fake that it makes Andrew want to hurl. 

It’s not fun, it’s definitely the last thing Andrew would have chosen as their activity, but it’s amusing and infuriating at the same time to see how many people throw themselves at Kevin’s feet when Andrew wants nothing more than to throw Kevin onto the ground. Maybe twist his legs into a brezel. Andrew hasn’t decided yet. 

What is fun, however, are the couple of people who try to shake Andrew’s hand and then give up with a frown when Andrew just stares them down with a smile. 

It all comes to a half, however, when Neil quietly says his name and has him turning, and then following what he’s looking at in a heartbeat. 

“Oh, finally,” Andrew says and steps next to Neil. He can see dark figures walking their way, and it’s not difficult at all to make out the Ravens because they’re the only team dressed like they’re attending a funeral. It’s the entire team, with their eyes on Kevin and walking in a V formation like a flock of birds going south. They look absolutely ridiculous and it takes actual effort for Andrew not to laugh. “Kevin, look. We have company.” 

“Excuse me,” Kevin says to the Beckenridge Jackals, a strain in his voice, and then moves to Andrew’s other side. 

Riko stops too far away for Andrew to reach out in a friendly gesture and accidentally choke him, and then the rest of the Ravens keep going, flip their V until they trap the Foxes between them and Andrew snorts because _really_. 

Then Renee is there, quiet and fast steps bringing her to Kevin’s other side where she loops one arm through Kevin’s. “Jean, wasn’t it?” she asks and holds her free hand out to him. “My name is Renee Walker. We didn’t really get a chance to talk earlier.” 

Confusion breaks apart the stoic mask on Jean’s face into something uncomfortable, and it would remind Andrew of Neil but it _doesn’t_ , and then he accepts her handshake. “Jean Moreau.” 

“Neil Josten,” someone says and Andrew is about to tell Neil that he doesn’t need to introduce himself to them because they certainly seem to know all about him, but the voice doesn’t match him. Two men and a woman stand to their left and the men sneer at Neil. Andrew didn’t think it was possible, but they actually look uglier than Kevin when he does it. “We are the Raven’s starting strikers. We wanted you to see us so you know what an offense team really looks like.” 

“Offense, or offensive?” Matt comes to a stop next to Neil and one of the Ravens takes a small step back, not without glaring, to avoid them bumping into each other. “Matt Boyd, starting backliner for the Foxes. I’m the one who’s going to be wrecking your goals this October. Nice to meet you.” He holds out his hand but doesn’t look surprised when they don’t take it and looks down at it with a shrug. “Guess the pleasure’s all mine.” 

“We’re sure it is,” the Raven striker says with another ugly sneer, “seeing how you’re dating a prostitute.” 

Dan shows up and wraps an arm around Matt’s waist as she corrects, “Stripper.” Her stilettos clack against each other from where they’re hanging off her fingers by their thin straps and it gets louder as she jiggles them. “Hopefully you’re smart enough to distinguish between the two professions. If you’re not, I have serious concerns about your academic standings.” 

Andrew’s fingers start to itch and he suddenly craves the light weight of a cigarette between his fingers.

“Hennessey, right? Such a good name for such a fierce spirit.” 

“We were a little disappointed you didn’t sign up as part of the entertainment tonight,” the other striker says chuckles. “We were looking forward to the show.” 

Dan slides around Matt to get into the Raven’s personal space and the striker grins at Matt over her shoulder before he tilts forward and sucks a deep breath against her neck. 

Something hot and furious lits up inside of Andrew so fast that he doesn’t see it coming, and it’s a bucket filled to the brim with gasoline that meets a burning match that has been carelessly tossed aside, but then takes a breath and feels Neil next to him, so close that he feels his body warmth burn on his skin, and the anger inside of him is gone in the next second. It makes place for amusement when Dan brings her stilettos up between the Raven’s legs in a vicious punch. 

“Yeah, Hennessey,” Dan says, calmly. “Treats you right if you’re willing to pay and will fuck you over the morning after if you’re not nice enough to her. Sorry, but this bottle’s got a name on it. Hope you feel that one for a while, you lowlife asshole.” She turns around and leans against Matt when she’s close enough again. 

“What happened to being polite, Dan?” Neil asks. 

Andrew doesn’t hear what Dan says. His attention is on the man joining the absolutely ridiculous Raven triangle and the corner of his mouth twitches into a big smile. Coach Tetsuji Moriyama, one of the inventors of Exy, the man who handpicked Edgar Allan to be home of the first NCAA Exy stadium, the founder of the Exy Rules and Regulations Committee and Riko’s uncle steps forward. 

“Kevin Day,” he says with a booming voice and all the Ravens turn to look at him. That’s an awful lot of respect, Andrew thinks cheerfully, for a man who has the word abuser written all over him in capital letters. 

“Master,” Kevin says from next to Andrew and Andrew has the sudden urge to slip one of his fingers underneath his armbands. What loyalty, what fear, that Kevin still calls this man his master. Maybe, Andrew thinks as Moriyama comes closer, some dogs take longer to learn new tricks than others, huh? “It’s been a while.” 

Moriyama motions to the Ravens and they break their weird formation and then fill the gaps between the Foxes, and Andrew feels another wave of anger break through the cloud of his medications when Neil disappears from next to him and someone tries to bodily shift him out of the way in the same breath. He happily squishes someone’s foot underneath his boot as Moriyama holds out his hand and Kevin places his left hand in it.

“Hm,” Moriyama hums, a low sound, and manages to make it sound so condescending that Andrew feels his eyebrow twitch. “It looks like it managed to heal nicely,” he says and raises his eyebrows at Kevin. 

“Yes, master. It did.” 

“But the job seems like it had been a little messy. Careless.” He presses his thumb into the back of Kevin’s hand and Andrew can hear Kevin swallow. “You will not use this again, no?” Then he clicks his tongue, a gesture so similar to the one Riko had done earlier and still miles between them. “No, rather not. There would be no use losing it. A shame.” 

There’s another spike of anger, hot and blinding, and it rolls around in Andrew and moves through his veins like his blood does and he feels like he’s flying too close to the sun with the force of it because that was a threat and Andrew holds his promises, he will not let them—

“Coach Moriyama,” someone says then and Andrew blinks. Takes a breath. Takes another one as Moriyama drops Kevin’s hand and looks at Wymack and Abby, who have just joined them. “What a pleasant surprise to see you here.” 

He sounds anything but pleasantly surprised and he jerks his head at all of them, a repeat of the shooing he had done at the beginning of the evening, with something akin to anger in his eyes. Abby shoots Andrew a smile and then looks at Kevin and nods. 

That’s all the approval Andrew needs, and he uses his hands to turn Kevin and then shoves him away from the Ravens. After the fifth hard push against his back, Kevin starts to walk properly instead of stumbling along and his breaths come normal instead of in wheezing gasps. They’re close to the other side of the court, to the wall farest away from where the Ravens seem to be still standing, when Matt rushes by them. 

“Have you seen Neil?” he asks and when neither of them answers, disappears again. 

And then Andrew stops, close enough to the wall that Kevin can lean against it and close his eyes, because of course. He turns around and runs his eyes over the people in the court and it doesn’t come as a surprise when he doesn’t see Neil. No, it doesn’t come as a surprise at all. Running now would be the smart move; after the names Jean had dropped, after it had been made clear that Riko knows something, that he’s obviously able to use whatever he knows about Neil against him. 

Considering the boss of Neil’s father is familiar with the Moriyama’s, this means that maybe, maybe, this person knows something about Neil too, maybe enough to find him. And if Riko knows something, there is a high chance that his dear uncle knows too, and Andrew thinks Neil is smart enough to be able to put one and one together. The other Moriyama arriving would have been the perfect opportunity to run. To take the easy way out instead of the hard one and trust someone else. 

It makes perfect sense and Andrew doesn’t think he’ll see Neil again, which means he’ll have to find something else for Kevin to focus on instead of a mini-Kevin, which means he won’t feel like he’s burning from the inside out or like he caught whatever Bee had been sick with, which means that he needs to change the locks of the house in Columbia, he doesn’t have to figure out a puzzle that cannot be figured out and—

And then, after Allison, Dan and Renee join them, the court doors open and Neil walks in with Matt at his side, and his eyes wide and his breathing a little too fast to be normal but he’s here and Andrew feels overcome with something, something very close to amusement and surprise. Something dangerous.

“Oh, Neil came back,” he says as Neil glances in Wymack and Moriyama’s direction. “I didn’t think you would.” 

Neil looks at him with his wide and so very wrong colored eyes and then pulls his fist from his pocket. When he uncurls it, there’s the silver flip phone Andrew had given him laying on his palm. Andrew looks up at his face, but Neil is staring at the phone, and Neil says in German, “I made a different call this time.” 

Andrew lets the faint amusement inside of him grow as his smile does too and then he laughs. Because, hey, that was actually funny and it means that Neil chose to trust Andrew instead of hauling ass. “How interesting,” he says, because it is. Terribly so, even. “How unexpected. Did it hurt a little?” 

“Not as much as my next conversation with Kevin will.” 

“Not tonight,” Andrew says and waves his hand in a try to wave the words away. Kevin is already a mess, not that it isn’t clear for anyone to see, and Andrew has a feeling that whatever Neil has to talk to Kevin about, it has the potential of making the Riko, Jean and Tetsuji thing in one evening into the tip of the iceberg. And Andrew really, really doesn’t want to deal with Kevin if that happens. Not tonight, at least. “I’ll give him to you tomorrow.” 

Neil takes this with a nod and then Matt looks from Neil to Andrew and back again. “How many languages do you speak, exactly?” 

“A couple,” Neil says, and then flicks another look at Andrew. “Who is Doe?” 

“Oh, that’s me,” Andrew says. “I didn’t enter the foster system with a last name, so I was tagged as Doe. Like John Doe. Get it?” He blows out a snort. “Ah, they think they’re clever. I changed my name when I was adopted. Yes?” he asks because he knows Neil already knows this. “Nicky said he told you all about it.” 

There’s a second of silence between them and then Neil says, vaguely, “He summarized it for us.” 

It’s enough to make Andrew grin, because he’s sure Nicky did more than just summarize it, but he doesn’t feel like continuing on with the conversation and so he goes back to guarding Kevin until Wymack rounds them up a little later. 

They change into the clothes they came in and get on the road with the moon high on the sky and her shine giving the surrounding trees a silver glow. 

Andrew looks up at the stars when they drive, looks at the brightest of them and thinks, _hello, Venus_ , before his eyelids start to grow heavy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m back — no, i don’t feel like myself again to 100% but i’m back, hello. 
> 
> first i’d like to thank everyone who took the time to comment on the last chapter, and i’m sure i say it.. a LOT but those every single comment truly means the world to me. so thank you. genuinely. 
> 
> also, comments are great. i love them. i love hearing people’s thoughts and all that, but i don’t want anyone to feel like they HAVE to leave comments. only comment when YOU want to, okay? 
> 
> [scratches head] oh, i also don’t know when i’ll upload chapter 21. i do feel better, but my sleeping schedule is fucked and i sleep way more than i should so i need to get that checked. apologies for that! 
> 
> but as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small warning for riko and light withdrawals 
> 
> \- please enjoy reading.

The following morning, after Andrew bullies Nicky to drive him and Kevin to the stadium and then return to the dorms without the car, Andrew follows Kevin inside to the court and then immediately turns away from the striker once they’re inside. 

He almost turns around again when Kevin doesn’t start arguing but instead enters the inner court alone to stand on the gigantic and very much horrendous looking fox paw in the center as if he’s about to start performing a song. Or something equally disturbing Andrew has absolutely no interest in ever seeing. 

His morning pill after breakfast fills Andrew with enough energy that he feels his legs start to bounce as soon as he sits down on the stands and so he stands up again. Lets his thoughts run and they do; they bounce around like a ball made out of gummi in an empty room, as if Andrew is throwing it with as much force as possible before locking the door and leaving. 

They get faster and faster, get more erratic as Andrew’s pulse speeds up when he starts running up and down the stands to get rid of the energy inside of him that keeps coming and coming, to have something to do that doesn’t include antagonizing Kevin when Kevin decides he is going to try to use his head without hurting himself in the process. 

Running is enough to get the restless energy inside of him to settle for now, but it’s not enough for Andrew to escape his thoughts because nothing is and he never has a chance to escape anything with a mind that keeps and keeps and saves. That repeats and repeats the same events over and over again like a broken record without forgetting a single thing. 

They reach for him, get bigger and bigger the wider they have to reach before they make contact, they bury their long claws inside of him and yank him back. They rip Andrew clean off his feet before he has a chance to react and then he finds that he doesn’t even want to react because there’s amusement and it’s bright, it’s a splash of color on the blank canvas of his very being, and it has him laughing and then laughing louder as the thoughts slip inside of his open mouth and swallow him whole. 

It’s ridiculous that when Neil arrives and drops his travel back somewhere near the Foxes’ benches, Andrew doesn’t have to turn around to confirm that it’s him because something deep inside of him pulls at him and it’s a small flame whose name Andrew knows like his own reflection grinning back at him when he looks into a mirror. It’s cupped between careful hands to protect it from the wind that is named after Andrew because Andrew knows that it’s ridiculous and he needs to kill the flame before it has the chance to grow, before it has the chance to burn down the very construction that makes Andrew.

Andrew had recognized the pull deep inside of his stomach the first time it appeared; he first time he had seen Neil clad in black and staring back at Andrew without contacts, when Neil had given Andrew a truth without getting a single thing in return, and then again when Andrew had pulled him closer, when Neil had been close enough for Andrew to not only see the faint freckles that resembled the stars blinking at the sky in the night but also his own reflection in Neil’s blue, blue eyes. 

Something Bee had said to him about two weeks ago comes back to Andrew as he keeps going up and down the stairs and as his thoughts go round and round like a carousel, like snow rolling down a hill and clumping together with more snow until it turns into an avalanche and brings destruction with it on impact. 

( _“Sometimes,” she had said with her cup of tea in her hands and one leg thrown over the other. The clock behind her had been ticking and ticking and Andrew had his eyes on the clock hand that jumped second to second and had imagined himself as a bug in the air until getting whacked and thrown across the room. Bee had cleared her throat and smiled back (calm, always so calm when faced with Andrew and Andrew’s sharp smile that speaks of knives and blood instead of the warm look she keeps giving him) when Andrew turned to her when she noticed his distraction. “Sometimes, Andrew, the most terrifying thing about looking at someone is getting looked at in return, wouldn’t you agree?”_ ) 

It doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t matter, and Andrew knows this because no one has ever looked back at Andrew when he had looked at them, and Andrew knows better than to let this simple attraction grow into something more and let it be the thing that manages to kill him. 

But he remembers ( _because of course he does, he always does, he never forgets_ ) standing in Wymack’s apartment with withdrawals pulling and pushing at his skin and stomach and looking into Neil’s eyes. 

And he remembers that it had been as if they were a mirror because they had been showing the darkness slumbering inside of him rearing its ugly head when Neil’s voice broke like the truth scraped his throat raw. He remembers his own reflection looking back at him after he had given Neil the phone in the locker room when Andrew had leaned into Neil’s space, and he remembers thinking that it was _interesting_ and _dangerous_ because that had made him want to look in return. 

It really, really shouldn’t matter because Neil is Neil and he will most likely do the thing he does the best after Andrew’s protection wears off in May and run away without looking back. But Andrew never once chose to take the easy road out, now did he? 

Andrew eventually feels bored by the time his pulse goes way faster than it usually does and he switches from running up and down the stairs to jogging laps around the inner court in an attempt to tire his body and brain enough for his thoughts to slow down. In a weak attempt to out-run this attraction laying itself over him like a thin blanket even when he knows it won’t work.

Andrew has never been much of a runner, after all.

*

October, and with that their match against the Ravens, arrives without a warning and it passes over Andrew like everything else does: with a spark of amusement coming to life from deep inside of him every time he lets one of his pills drop down into his stomach. 

In the week leading up to the game, there are events on every night starting from bands having free concerts on the stadium lawn to almost all of the student body wearing the nauseating school colors on a day someone very intelligently had named Orange Day to White Day and a pep rally the whole team is required to attend. There are news cameras on every corner and Andrew is almost disappointed that Wymack had maneuvered everything in a way that lets Andrew no chance to actually say something to a journalist by the time Friday’s morning practice rolls around. 

Wymack also signs everyone out of their afternoon classes and has the whole team meet at the stadium around three. The game doesn’t start for another four hours but Andrew knows their Coach well enough by now that he knows Wymack is trying to shield everyone from the madness that’s unfolding around the university. 

Andrew rolls his head and lets it rest against the back of the couch when Dan turns on the TV and flips the channels until she finds a movie to watch, the warmth coming from his left and making half of his body feel like it’s on fire enough to distract him until Kevin tries to explain the Raven’s synchrony. 

“Ravens come to Edgar Allan University for one reason only,” Kevin says and it’s not enough for Andrew to turn his head and look at him like the rest of the team undoubtedly does. It’s not something he hasn’t heard before. “And that is to play Exy. Every single athlete Coach Moriyama—” the stumble Kevin does to avoid calling the old man his master like some kind of dog has Andrew grinning at the crack in the ceiling right above him “—accepts is expected to sign to a professional team upon graduation. Everyone is enrolled on the same undergraduate degree and takes their classes together in groups of three of four because school is a secondary concern for the whole team.” 

There is something small and dark crawling on the ceiling, and Andrew can’t make out if it’s a bug or a spider until it starts lowering itself with a web before stopping and retreating again.

“Evermore is built with extra amenities like towers for celebrities and the ERC, lounges for high-profile guests and spacious living quarters for living teams that are built underground beneath the court floor, and that is what the Ravens use as a dorm instead of the house. That one is to keep up appearances,” Kevin says and then swallows loud enough that Andrew can hear it. And then he does it again. “If Ravens aren’t in class,” he continues, voice rough. Andrew imagines that it probably brings up memories for Kevin to talk about his old team, his old home, like that and he narrows his eyes as his smile grows.

Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew sees his cousin move and then when he lays a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin takes a deep breath at that and then says again, “If Ravens aren’t in class, they are expected to at Evermore. They live and breathe Exy on a scale no other team ever can or will because the intense lifestyle, forced integration, and.. punishments put them on a whole different scale than any of the other teams.” 

Dan is the first one to find her voice when Kevin finishes and Andrew follows the line the spider on the ceiling walks with his eyes. “They’re the complete opposite of us,” she says, and it’s something that should’ve been obvious enough for all of them already. 

Wymack slaps his hands together somewhere on Andrew’s left and it’s loud enough in the otherwise quiet room that it throws echoes. “What the fuck are those long faces for? I don’t care if this is pitting a hive mind against—”

A fractured bunch of rejects, Andrew thinks. 

“—you guys,” Wymack says and then looks at the watch around his wrist. “This is Palmetto and they’re gonna be in our territory. And you better show them what we’re made of and where they are without pissing on them until the last buzzer sounds or there will be extra laps for every single one of you. Understood?” 

Silence settles over them after that as they get changed a little after until they hear the unmistakable sounds of the gates getting unlocked and hundreds of people walking inside. Kevin steadily walks to the stick rack after Wymack brings it out and threads his fingers through the nets of his own pair and Andrew, who missed his last dose but still feels like he’s flying sky high and stopped midair at the same time, leans against the lockers behind him. 

Abby looks at Kevin. “Can you do this Kevin? Can you play?” 

“If I am breathing, I can play,” Kevin says, which shouldn’t be as much of a surprise at it actually is considering how his one track mind works but it’s enough to make Andrew grin as he compares this to the shaking mess he had been before the banquet. “This is my game too.” 

“Words to live and die by,” Wymack says and then motions for them to line up. Andrew drags it out a little and then wags his fingers at Wymack when he glares at him. “I expect a double-digit score from my offense line.” He looks at their star striker. “Kevin, you know their defense better than anyone else and they don’t know how to face you right-handed, so run them into the ground.” 

Kevin swallows hard enough to make his Adam’s apple jump up and down and then nods, Abby’s hand on his arm. 

“Neil, get at least five points or I’ll have you running marathons every month until graduation.” 

“Five points?”

“You got four last week.” 

“We weren’t playing Edgar Allan last week, Coach,” Neil says and frowns in a way that makes his eyes look bigger than they are. It’s highly irritating, Andrew finds. 

“Irrelevant,” Wymack says and waves away Neil’s argument with his hand. “Five points or twenty-six miles.” Andrew doubts that running a marathon isn’t something Neil would do for fun (because Neil might be truly and honestly as insane as people think Andrew is), but he doesn’t say it. “Do the math and decide which one makes you happier.” 

“You ladies let offense drown if you have to,” Wymack says to Allison and Dan before Neil has a chance to say anything else. “They’re not your concern. Your focus tonight is keeping the defense line afloat. Get me?” he asks but doesn’t wait for a reply. “We know the Ravens are faster and bigger and better than us, especially _now_ after hearing how their Evermore situation works. But we only have a chance so long as we can control their score. Defense,” he continues with a glance at Nicky, Matt and Aaron, “keep the strikers away from goal. Period, end of story.” 

“Andrew,” he says then and Andrew meets his gaze. “For once in your miserable, midgety life play like you want us to win, would you?” 

Andrew doesn’t answer him verbally but wags his fingers and lets his amusement show in his growing grin. Really, he thinks as the warning buzzer sounds and Wymack claps his hands to make the team fall in line, what other reason does Andrew have on game nights to make himself go through the withdrawals other than to play this stupid sport? 

“Let’s do this,” Wymack says and claps again. “The sooner we kill these bastards, the sooner we can get roaring drunk at Abby’s place. I spent all damned morning stocking her fridge.” 

It’s clear to everyone that Wymack offers the team a chance to drink themselves to sleep so that no one stays up all night stewing in their failure because he knows as much as every single person inside of the room and on the team of the Ravens that the Foxes will most likely get completely slaughtered tonight, but it doesn’t stop the others from smiling and Nicky from whooping in glee. 

Wymack pushes the door open then and Dan smiles at everyone over her shoulder before she leads them to the stadium. 

Andrew considers tripping Kevin on their way there but the noises that crashes over him, cheers and screams that are twice as loud as they are at any normal game, stop him from doing so. He can see the cheerleaders jumping around from the corner of his eye but immediately turns his head away and looks into the horrible sea of orange to spot a sign that reads “1-2” and that makes anger faint enough to ignore the spark come alive inside of him before it’s washed away again. 

Then, suddenly, there’s the heavy pulse of drums that is Edgar Allen’s fight song and the same one that had been played at Riko’s arrival at Kathy Ferdinand’s show. It’s a dark and heavy tune, and Andrew is sure it’s supposed to convey a message of death and domination and show how serious the Ravens take their image but he just finds it utterly ridiculous. 

The crowd goes wild as soon as the Ravens step into side, with the Palmetto students chanting derogatory phrases and hateful boos and Andrew is tempted to join in until Wymack looks over his shoulder. Andrew lifts his hands in an innocent gesture he knows Wymack doesn’t believe as Raven fans roar battle cries and other fans cheer around them. 

Both teams are sent to warm up shortly after and since Wymack ceded the inner court to the bigger team of the Ravens, Andrew follows the others on the laps on the court itself. He glances over at the endless line of black and red as they pass and lets his grin grow into something wider, something more sinister, when one of them meets his eyes. 

They get kicked off the court by the referees after their drills during which Andrew has to concentrate not to try to aim for the strikers of the other team and hit them purely on accident, and leave only the captains behind for the coin flip. The head referee stays where he is after the coin flip and Andrew obediently takes his place at the back of the line behind everyone else. He puts his racquet over his shoulders to rest his arms on it as everyone else cracks theirs together. 

The speakers overhead come to life with a crackle and then the announcer starts reading their line-up with, “Number two, Kevin Day.” And the crowd around them gets loud enough to drown out everything else he says. 

If only, Andrew thinks as Kevin ignores the ecstatic roar of the fans around them filling up the stadium and gets onto the court, they knew what their darling Kevin looks like with drool dried on his chin and his breath bad and strong enough for Andrew to smell it from the other side of the room. 

“Number ten,” the announcer continues over the sounds of the still cheering crowd, “Neil Josten.” 

Andrew keeps his eyes on the white ten of Neil’s jersey as he walks to his spot on the half-court line, like a magnet drawn to another one, and only blinks to look at Wymack when Allison, Renne and Nicky have followed their strikers. 

“Hey, Coach,” Andrew says as he steps next to him. “Coach, loach, roche, roach. David. David, waited, rated, stated.” He blinks and lets the amusement bubbling up inside of him pull his grin wider. “Wow, your name kind of sucks, doesn’t it? You can’t even rhyme it with anything! That’s sad. Really.” 

“What?” 

“What?” 

“Andrew,” Wymack says at the same time the announcer overhead calls Andrew’s name. It’s only a little funny. “What the fuck do you want?” 

“Nothing,” Andrew says automatically (because someone like him shouldn’t want anything, because someone like him isn’t allowed to have anything that stays) and then he gasps as if he just now remembers. “Oh! Say, what’s your favorite number?” 

Wymack sighs, long past the point of questioning Andrew’s actions, and says, “Thirteen.” And then, before Andrew can tell him what a shit number that is, he snaps, “Now get out of my sight.” 

And because Andrew doesn’t want to risk Wymack popping one of his blood vessels, as funny as that would be to watch for all but a second before everyone would freak out, he walks onto court. There is the same rage in Allison’s eyes when he meets them for a second as he walks by on his way to the goal that he had seen a day after Seth’s death.

It makes his smile widen only a little as he takes his place in goal. 

He watches as Riko Moriyama strides onto the Foxhole Court like he owns the whole stadium as the crowd around them roars and cheers in approval. But instead of taking his spot, he stops at Kevin’s side and Andrew drops his racquet from his shoulders as Riko takes off his helmet to say something to Kevin. Kevin unstraps his own helmet, hooks it over his fingers to answer and then they stare at each other down as the rest of the Ravens take the court. 

When the referees move to check onto the teams, Riko unfreezes from his place in front of Kevin with his neck bent at an awkward angle and Andrew tightens his grip on his racquet, wraps his fingers tighter around the wooden material, when he winds an arm around Kevin’s shoulders and pulls him into a short hug. 

And that—

—Andrew can’t have that because it reminds him of Kathy Ferdinand’s show, when Andrew could do nothing but watch as Riko hugged Kevin, when Andrew couldn’t protect Kevin like he promised he would and the thick glass wall made out of the drugs keeping Andrew always separated from the ground by an inch, the one that separates Andrew from the rage that sparks deep inside of him, the rage that feels like it gets filled into a glass and runs over the edge to spill everywhere, cracks with a loud snap and it’s the same sound Andrew’s racquet makes when he slams it against the side of the goal. 

Andrew repeats the move and then Riko walks off and Kevin looks back for a second before yanking his helmet back on. A second after that, Kevin lifts his own racquet to signal an okay to the referees who then goes to the Raven dealer to hand over a ball before leaving the court and bolting the doors closed. 

The buzzer sounds a few seconds after that, and it’s loud and enough to have Neil racing up to the court where the Raven dealer serves it to the home court wall. It bounces off and everyone but Allison races after it, and then Allison manages to catch it as it comes back after hitting the wall and turns to throw it into Andrew’s direction in a move that mirrors the one they had pulled again and again in their last game. Andrew watches the ball approach, watches as it spins in the air and swings his racquet to hit it strong enough to make it soar all the way up the court, hits it strong enough to make Neil and Kevin race the backliners to the ball. 

Kevin smacks his stick against Jean’s with a smack that echoes off the wall and they struggle for the ball until Kevin slams his shoulder hard enough into the backliner to make him stumble and throws the ball at the goal as soon as it pops free of Jean’s racquet. The ball hits the wall as Jean checks Kevin hard enough to knock him over and Neil runs after it. Neil’s backliner, Johnson, slams into Neil and then manages to twist his racquet around Neil’s in a move that has Neil dropping his. 

There’s a feeling that he’s familiar with deep inside of him, something very close to anger, as Andrew watches this unfold and tightens his grip around his racquet as Neil barrels into Johnson and has them both falling down. 

Then the ball goes to Riko, then a dealer, then the other striker and back to Riko and Andrew thinks, with a tinge of amusement making the corner of his mouth twitch up, that this really isn’t more interesting than watching the Foxes at practice, but then Riko out-steps Riko. He moves in a blur and Andrew blinks in the second he hears something soar by his head too fast for him to react and then he hears the crowd scream as a buzzer sounds. 

Out of the corner of his eye, something red creeps into his vision and Andrew turns to see the goal behind him lit up in vibrant red and he blinks. And then again as the glow starts to fade and he feels a droplet of sweat run down his back. This, Andrew thinks as the dealer yells for everyone to go back into line, is the fastest anyone has ever scored on him. 

And then, somehow, after the buzzer sounds and the teams slam into each other once again, after not more than five minutes, Riko throws another ball at the goal and Andrew narrows his eyes as the goal lights up red again. Tilts his head as Riko comes closer to him instead of going back to his starting spot and feels another wave of hot anger as he moves closer to meet him halfway. 

“I told you this isn’t what Kevin needs,” Riko says, and he sounds so angry over something like Exy that Andrew can’t do anything else than wag his hand in dismissal. Because, really, arguing over this sport is possibly the last thing he ever wants to do. Especially with Riko Moriyama when he’s close to going through his withdrawals. “You’re not even taking this seriously. I cannot wait until Kevin realizes this as well and finally comes running back with his tail between his legs.” 

Andrew pushes out a dramatic sigh and drops his shoulders, lets himself ride the coattails of his meds without fighting against it for once, and says, “Eleven.” 

“What?” Riko asks and Andrew throws the question back at him as the referees thump on the court door in warning. Through the net on his helmet, Andrew can see the pure anger on Riko’s face and it’s really, incredibly amusing to him. He has the sudden urge to shove Riko’s back with his racquet as the other man turns around to get in place for the next play. He doesn’t, but it’s a close thing. 

The words Riko said bounce around Andrew’s head again and again as he watches the Foxes and Ravens push against each other. He hears another crack as the wall of amusement breaks at another place, as the fog inside of his head lifts slowly and the bright colors around him dull and then there’s a ball flying at the goal, and Andrew watches it as it gets closer and puts the anger bleeding through the cracks of the glass into swing of his racquet. It hits the ball strong enough that the following sound resembles a clap of thunder and Andrew watches as Neil runs after the ball. 

As time goes by, as fifteen minutes go by and the number inside of Andrew goes from eleven to ten, there are more and more cracks building on the wall, the fog inside of him escapes through the space between the sharp glass. The amusement drains out of him with every single ball he sends to their strikers, it runs out of him like water does out of a bathtub without a plug and leaves Andrew with his feet firmly on the ground and his attention zeroed more and more onto what’s going on in front of him. 

Wymack takes advantage of the break the Ravens create as players get switched and sends Matt and Aaron on for Nicky and Renee. While Andrew doesn’t care for this sport and knows that he never will, he does know that Matt is currently the strongest player on their team and while he doesn’t give an inch to his brother, Andrew also knows that Aaron can outplay Nicky any day. And it shows in the difference they make on the court; their arrival makes it possible for the Foxes to hold their ground. 

Andrew keeps his eyes on Matt and he slams into Riko, who is carrying the ball, and moves before he hears the two fall to the ground with a loud crash. He can see Aaron, the other Raven striker and both dealers racing for the ball in his peripheral vision but he knows that he’s closer and faster than them, especially with the rest of his drugs still running through his body. The racquet in his hands is flat because it’s meant to deflect a ball and not catch it, which means that it’s nearly impossible for Andrew to scoop the ball up, but it’s not impossible to redirect it and Andrew knows how to. 

He glances up for barely a second, for less than a heartbeat, and then looks down to give the ball a short and fierce swat. It hits the ground first, then the wall second before it rebounds high and Andrew clears it all the way up to the strikers — to Neil because he has plenty of room to run and he’s their fastest, possibly _the_ fastest, player — with a swing hard enough that he can feel it all the way up to his elbows. 

Neil runs and the gap between him and Johnson gets bigger until it’s about six feet wide by the time he manages to catch the ball. He keeps going after a quick glance over his shoulder, after a quick look for Kevin, and then keeps going to throw the ball at the other goal wall on his tenth step. 

The rebound comes back and it’s perfect and Kevin doesn’t have to do more than bring his racquet back on the catch and fire straightway, and it’s clearly not something the Ravens had been expecting by the baffled looks Jean and the goalkeeper have on their faces as their goal lights up red. 

The entire vibe on the court changes after the Foxes manage to get onto the scoreboard and it shows the next time when Riko takes a shot on goal that Andrew easily deflects, but not before seeing Riko’s lips move under his helmet — which is most likely the reason for Matt tripping him. 

It doesn’t take more than a couple of seconds from there for them to fight and the game comes to a stop as the referees run in to break it up and give Matt a yellow card for throwing the first punch. The look on his face is furious enough that Andrew knows whatever Riko had said to him set this in motion and tipped over the first domino in a row of hundreds. 

The foul gives Riko a penalty shot and Andrew sees it coming; he sees the way Riko turns his body and then his racquet into the other direction but in the second the ball leaves his net, the second Andrew should use to move, there’s a sudden and sharp pain in his stomach, there and gone a second later, and it’s enough to make Andrew miss it by half an inch. 

Ten turns to nine to eight to seven and Andrew stops counting how many shots he slams back onto the court in the final twenty minutes of the first half. He stops counting the yellow cards that get handed out, doesn’t care about the red card of one Raven, as the energy his meds give him drains faster and faster, as the sounds inside of him get quieter and quieter.

Then Neil gets elbowed into the face with an upward swing that has his nose bleeding and Abby running onto the court with gauze as the time hits forty-four. 

There’s something like anger sipping through the cracks into Andrew’s system at that, but he knows there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it, so Andrew puts his racquet down in front of him and crosses his aching arms on the top to lean against it as Abby tilts his head. Her lips move and her face pinches and then she walks off the court again after wiping his face and lightly patting his helmet. Neil manages to score his penalty shot and then a buzzer sounds to signal that the first half is over. 

Andrew follows everyone off the court and sits down heavily in front of his locker. His energy is draining faster than usual, his withdrawals come closer and closer in a speed that is too high to what he’s used to because the Ravens are running him, are running everyone, into the ground and Andrew clenches his teeth and swallows the sports drink Abby hands him to chase away the faint nausea in his stomach. 

He keeps it in mind, the question he had asked Wymack before the game, as the second half starts and turns out to be possibly worse than the first one was — not that it wasn’t to be expected with a team like the Ravens. He keeps it in mind as he batters one ball away after another, keeps it in mind as he loses his balance when he moves to defend the goal and the number comes down from seven to six to five to four to three to one. 

The withdrawals hit him fast and hard shortly before the game ends. The sounds of the audience and the game get fainter and fainter until all Andrew can hear is his own heart beating in his chest and the breaths that sound more like gasps that he’s able to take. They hurt on the way down as if they’re ripping his throat open and there’s pressure and pain building at Andrew’s temples and behind his eyes. Andrew feels so, so heavy and the silence inside his head has clawed its way out of the cracks in the wall, it has taken the wall down like a wrecking ball and sunk its claws into Andrew.

One goes to zero in the last seconds of the game as Riko takes a shot at the goal Andrew would have usually been able to defend (because he sees it coming from miles away, because it incredibly easy to read Riko’s body language), but then there’s a ten foot tall wave of nausea and pain rolling over him in the second he lifts his foot to move and it roots him in his spot, causes him to move a heartbeat too slow, causes him to miss with his racquet brushing the ball until the goal lights up red behind him. 

When the final buzzer sounds to signal the end of the game, Andrew feels the rest of his strength leave his body and his fingers feel numb enough that they easily release his racquet and let it clatter to the ground. He knows the number he will see on the scoreboard but looks up at the red thirteen anyway — it’s the most goals anyone has ever managed to take from Andrew, and it’s somehow only fitting that it’s Wymack’s favorite number. 

He leans over as his stomach gives another painful twist and pull, and then reaches out and wraps his fingers around his racquet to play it off. The pain in his hands pushes against the numbness of his fingers and it’s almost enough to make him drop the racquet immediately again, but he gets it about a foot off the floor before his fingers stop listening and it clatters to the ground again. 

It’s an odd reminder, Andrew thinks as he tries to pick it up and drops it again, of Neil almost blowing out his arms against Andrew on his first week in Palmetto. Andrew feels like he’s a ball of glass, of glass so thin that any movement can break it, when he sits down and his body aches and he shatters into a million pieces and then the subs crowd around the goal. The breaths Andrew manages to take through clenched teeth hurt and it makes the nausea and the sour taste at the back of his throat stronger. He concentrates on not getting sick in the middle of the court until Kevin crouches down before him.

“So,” Kevin says with his shoulders rapidly moving up and down and his eyes glazed over, “did you have fun?” 

And then, all of a sudden, Andrew feels incredibly tired. His eyelids drop in a blink that lasts a few moments too long and it takes the wished effect off his glare. 

“You are despicable, Kevin Day,” he says, without any heat. “I don’t know why I keep you around.” 

It’s not the truth and they both know it, but saying it makes Andrew feel better — if only a little. 

They both know that Andrew will not have something to hold him up when the drugs aren’t around to do it anymore and he gets sober, which is not only the exact reason why Andrew keeps Kevin around but also why he protects him; because Kevin promised to give something Andrew can build his life around once the time arrives. Though Andrew highly doubts that Kevin will manage that, not that he tells him. 

“Foxes,” Riko says somewhere behind Kevin and Andrew gives another tired blink. “I admit I’m at a loss as to what to do now. I cannot thank you for the night’s game because I can’t call this debacle a game. I thought I knew what to expect when we came here tonight, but I am still embarrassed.” Riko lifts his shoulders in a shrug and then looks down at Kevin after tilting his head back. “You have fallen so far, Kevin. You should have stayed down and saved us the trouble of forcing you back to your knees.” 

“I’m satisfied,” Kevin says and it’s honestly the last thing anyone expected to hear from him, especially after hearing his criticism again and again. The other Foxes and Ravens gape at Kevin. “Not with their score performance, but with their spirit. I was right. There’s more than enough here for me to work with.” 

“How many balls did you take to the helmet?” 

Kevin smiles, and it’s slow and sure and pleased, and then offers Andrew a hand. Andrew looks at it with another blink before he looks at Kevin again, and at how different from the shaking mess he is from last week, before letting Kevin pull him up. There is absolutely no strength left in his body, not even enough to stand, but then Renee loops her arms around him in a hug that would have Andrew lashing out on any other day — today, it doesn't because there’s armor around him that makes it impossible for him to really feel the touch and makes it easier for him to find his balance again. 

“Thank you for the game tonight,” he can hear Kevin say somewhere behind him. “We will see you again at the semifinals. It will be an interesting rematch, I promise.” 

“One man cannot carry you that far,” Riko says and Andrew knows he means the Foxes with Kevin as well as Kevin with Andrew. Andrew thinks about knocking out Riko’s pearly whites. “Even you are not stupid enough to believe that. You should give up now.” 

It would probably sound like friendly advice to anyone else, to anyone who doesn’t know Riko or the Ravens, but Andrew knows a threat when he hears one and swallows hard against another wave of nausea. Kevin knows it too, better than anyone else, but he just says, “One man is enough to start with.” 

“Thanks for nothing and good night,” Dan says before Riko has the chance to open his mouth again. “We’re out of here.” 

Andrew manages to put one foot in front of the other with the help of Renee’s arm around him and they slowly, very slowly, make their way off the court behind the other Foxes. He can see Wymack talk to a couple reporters on the side, which he excuses himself off at their arrival, and Andrew doesn’t do anything more than see that Wymack knows what Andrew did (what he did _for free_ ) in the look Wymack sends back, than see Wymack nod until he lets Renee pull him away from the cheers of their teammates and the glaring brightness of camera flashes and into the silent shadows that Andrew knows mirror the ones deep inside of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i kinda forgot i existed for a second, but hello. 
> 
> i wish i had more to say than i hope that you guys enjoyed this chapter but.. i do Not. oh, well, apart from the fact that the updates will be like they are now for the future because i just [static noises]. 
> 
> anyway, as always please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for alcohol, drugs, mention of drake spear and higgins

Andrew drags his group out of Abby’s house before noon on the next morning and into the car to get an early lunch at a small shop near the campus. 

Kevin, Nicky and Aaron are still too hungover to eat much and settle for pushing their food around their plates but Andrew finds that he really doesn’t care about that; his mind is already buzzing and cloudy and sparkly and his lips pulled into a smile. 

He’s as unsympathetic as possible, seeing as no one forced any of them to drink after their match, much less as much as they did consume, but he does wait for them to look a little steadier before he tells Nicky to drive them to the party store another fifteen minutes at the mall. 

Since Halloween falls on a Tuesday this year, Eden’s Twilight will have an event the Friday before and Andrew doesn’t care about the day more than anything else, a costume on Friday at Eden’s will mean a free drink and that absolutely means that they all need to be wearing one. Because, really, who would waste a free drink like that? 

Neil doesn’t seem to think so, however, and it becomes clear when he climbs out of the car after Andrew and says, “We’re a little old for costumes, don’t you think?”

“It’s bad form to go to a Halloween party without a costume, Neil,” Nicky says as he presses the keys to lock the car. “Besides, the bartenders give out a free round to anyone who comes dressed up.” 

“I don’t drink,” Neil says, echoing the words he had said to Andrew on his first trip to Columbia. 

Nicky lets out a sigh that makes his shoulders drop. It looks ridiculous, Andrew thinks and looks at the clouds on the sky that keep passing by. He spots one that looks like a grinning face and he can feel his own grin grow at the sight of it. 

“Then give your shot to me, you stingy child,” his cousin says as they approach the store. “I know you said you’d never come shopping with us again, but we’re doing you a huge favor dragging you along. You wouldn’t trust me to pick out your costume, would you?” He keeps going before Andrew sees Neil shake his head. “I’d probably make you a French maid or something. Come on.” 

The front of the store is packed with decorations, everything from packs of spider webs to skull-shaped shot glasses to ghost window clings and even some clown noses. Andrew feels tempted to take one to throw it at Nicky’s head for the comment he made, but the urge evaporates into a glittery cloud and rains onto the floor when he sees Neil pushing an animatronics raven that flaps its wings and caws at him to the back of the shelf. Then he watches as Neil pushes a Styrofoam skull that sparkles when the light hits it in front of it and turns away as something begins to tug at his stomach. 

There are rows of wigs (which he thinks would be hilarious to chuck at Neil considering his running and hiding), masks and an entire shelf filled with face paint and gaudy makeup that Andrew would never touch himself before he reaches the back half of the store that’s devoted to costumes. 

He keeps his eyes on Kevin’s dark hair as the striker walks between racks to search and grabs the nearest costume he can find. The black material he makes contact with is soft and cool to the touch. It would be ideal to go into a filled club wearing it, but Andrew sees the white skeleton printed on it. He quickly pulls it from the hanger and drops it to kick it under the stand to save others from the hideous thing. 

“People don’t really wear these, do they?” Neil asks and Andrew flicks his eyes up to see Neil pull out a milk carton with a cutout for the wearer’s face and a very bold _Have you seen me?_ printed beneath it. 

“Oh, that’s perfect, Neil,” Andrew says because, really, it would be fitting for someone like Neil; someone who has been on the run for several years and hiding and running and running some more while trying not to leave a trail. The look Neil sends him is dirty and it’s enough to make Andrew snort as he pulls out the white and black costume in front of him. “Nicky! Look!” he says as he holds it up for his cousin to see. “A cow. I think you should be this.” 

Nicky pulls a face when he sees it and points at the rubber udder with disgust on his face. “Cow tits,” he says. “At least let me be a bull, as in hung like one. Or Matt. Same difference, right?” he asks them and continues when no one answers him. “Dan is so lucky.” 

“I’m going to pretend I don’t know you,” Aaron says from where he’s shoving costumes to the left and right on their hangers to look at them. 

Andrew lowers the cow costume to shove it off the hanger and lets it drop to the floor, deciding that it’s not funny anymore, and kicks it to let it join the skeleton as Nicky sighs. “What else is new?” 

“Just hurry up and find something. I don’t want to spend all day shopping.” 

“You have somewhere to be?” Andrew has several ideas where his brother could possibly need to go but he doesn’t care about it, doesn’t care about the broken promise joining the broken ones around him like a pile of glass, doesn’t care about people who cannot hold their words. What he does care about, however, is the ugly Peter Pan costume that he pulls out to immediately drop it onto the floor. 

“I’ve got a paper due Monday.” 

“Do it tomorrow,” Nicky says. “Saturdays are supposed to be lazy.” 

“That attitude is why your grades are so terrible,” Aaron says, which is only a little bit ironic considering his own attitude but Andrew doesn’t feel like saying it as he sees a werewolf costume with hair everywhere that just so happens to look better when he lets it drop to the floor. 

Kevin, on his right but not far enough away that Andrew can’t have his eyes on him, pulls something long and dark off the rack closest to him — he folds it too quick for Andrew to really make out what it is, but he doesn't doubt that it’s probably a reaper cloak — and makes his way to the front where the decorations are. 

Andrew waits before Kevin stops walking to make sure that he doesn’t go too far (because Riko is a maniac and while Andrew might be one too, Riko plays on another level and with different strings than Andrew does, and Andrew doesn’t doubt for one second that the Raven could pop up at any moment) before he continues his own “search”. 

He is in the middle of letting another skeleton costume drop, this one with actual glitter over the white part which kind of ruins the whole purpose of a costume for Halloween, when he hears Neil say, “We should invite the others to come with us.” 

And that is—that is unexpected, something Andrew didn’t see coming and much less from Neil but the fact that it does come from Neil is interesting and it shouldn’t be but there’s, again, something tugging low in his stomach that he ignores as he kicks the costume to the others on the floor. 

“What?”

“No,” Aaron says. “We don’t go out with them. 

“We need them,” Neil says and that’s honestly news for Andrew because, really, he doesn’t need the upperclassmen, he doesn’t need anyone, but he highly doubts that his thoughts go into the same direction as Neil’s and isn’t surprised as it turns out that he’s right when Neil continues. “Talent alone won’t get us to semifinals. If that was enough, you’d have made it last year. You have to stop breaking the team in half.” 

“Don’t have to anything,” Andrew says and pulls out a horribly colored clown costume that he drops almost immediately. 

“Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile,” Aaron says and that is so hypocritical coming from him, considering that he does the exact same, that Andrew can feel his lips tugging into a wider, a meaner, smile. 

“You really think they’re strong enough to take a mile from Andrew? You think he’d let them?” Neil asks back and Andrew blinks as another costume (a pirate one this time) slips out of his fingers and falls to the floor. “Kevin told Riko we’d see them again at semifinals. I’d like us to get our act together before that rematch, wouldn’t you? We can’t do that until we respect and understand each other. We might as well start now, with this.” 

“I doubt they’d agree even if we invited them,” Nicky says. He shoves a few costumes to the left. Then he shoves some to the right. “We kind of burned that bridge last year.”

“You mean Matt,” Neil says and then his brown eyes, his brown eyes that still look oddly wrong to Andrew, look from one of them to the other before it settles on Andrew and makes Andrew feel like he’s sitting on the roof, barely holding on, with his feet dangling over the edge. Oh, Andrew doesn’t like this. “Abby mentioned it my first night here,” Neil says. “She didn’t want you doing to me what you did to him. When Coach was yelling at you afterward, you said it was different. So what happened with Matt?” 

“Ask him,” Andrew tells him because he doesn’t feel like explaining this. He doesn’t feel like explaining that it wasn’t just necessary for himself because Matt could and was allowed to, that it was good for him to fight an addiction when Andrew isn’t allowed to do anything of the sort, no matter how much he despises his own drugs.

And Andrew really, really doesn’t feel like explaining that this was as much for as it was for Aaron, who didn’t have an easy time watching Matt be something he had been only months earlier, who could barely look at Matt for more than a few seconds.

Neil keeps looking at him, doesn’t take his eyes off Andrew and then says, “I’m asking you.” 

“I’d rather hear how he tells it,” Andrew says. He pulls out another costume; one that’s black and white, striped and clearly an inmate’s outfit and it’s funny enough to him that he slings it over his shoulder. When he looks back to Neil, Neil opens his mouth to argue and Andrew quickly hooks a finger under his chin to jerk the striker’s mouth closed again with a jerk of his hand. “Ask him, and then tell the busybodies to come along if they dare.” 

There are fireworks exploding, running along his skin in hot, sparkling tingles that start from the finger that had been connected to Neil’s skin and Andrew ignores them, lets the feeling be washed away by the fog inside of his head in the next second, as Nicky turns to gape at the two of them. 

“Wait, are you serious?” 

Oh, Andrew is nothing but serious with this. “It won’t make a difference in the long run,” he says because the upperclassmen, not counting Renee, don’t trust Andrew’s group and much less Andrew himself because they only see what they want to see, and he highly doubts that one night out at Eden’s will change anything about that, “but find that one out for yourself.” 

He leaves them to their gaping selves then and collects two bottles of fake blood on his way to the front before accidentally throwing a fake eye off the shelf that happens to bounce off the floor high enough to hit Kevin in the shoulder. 

*

On Saturday, the parking lot at Fox Tower is filled with cars and after circling twice around it, Andrew hears Nicky decide that they’ll pull up to one of the street parking spots a very short walk away as he drums his fingers against the cool glass of the window to his right. 

They take the steps up to the third floor after walking the short distance to the building and by the time Andrew disappears in their suite, he has his pack of cigarettes in his hand and lets his bag with his costume drop to the floor. He crosses the room in quick strides, hops onto his desk and cracks the window open to let the chilly breeze from outside in as he lights it. The first drag he takes tastes like ash and fire and it’s familiar in the way it burns on the way down his throat before he exhales and lets it mix with the air where it rises up before disappearing. 

He doesn’t even make it half through it before there’s one hard, authoritative knock on their door, and both Aaron and Kevin turn their heads to look at it because the only one actually living with them who isn’t inside is Nicky. But Nicky has a key, and that means it isn’t him, so Andrew flicks the cigarette out of the open window with curiosity bubbling up inside of him to inspect. 

The knob of the door is metal and it’s cool on his warm skin as he puts his hand on it, spreads his fingers to turn it and opens the door. And then everything inside him stops — his thoughts, the constant buzzing of something in his head, the filter of color, of so much color everywhere Andrew looks —, stops for all but a second, as he opens the door halfway and sees who’s on the other side. 

Then, as suddenly as it's been placed there, the dam holding everything back breaks and there’s a spark of something, of anger, deep inside of him. 

The doorknob gives a low creak as Andrew twists it further than it’s meant to go. 

“Oh, I must be imagining things,” Andrew says out loud, even if he knows himself and his medication and their side effects good enough to realize that this is real, that Officer Higgins of the Oakland PD is actually standing on the other side of the door. He’s even dressed in a casual button-up shirt that clashes horribly with his jeans instead of a uniform, and it makes Andrew grin through the anger that is still burning low in his stomach. “Pig Higgins, you are a very, very long way from home.” 

“Andrew,” Higgins says and Andrew really, really hates the tone in which he says it. “We need to talk.” 

That is news to Andrew, because last he remembers they did talk and it was over with, so he tilts his head to the side. “We talked, remember? I told you not to bother me.” 

“You said not to call you,” Higgins says and crosses his arms. “Just give me a few minutes, won’t you, for old times’ sake?” he asks as if they had been anything more than acquaintances, as if they had been friends. “I came all the way out here to see you. Doesn’t that get me any sort of consideration?” 

Andrew snorts out a laugh through the hot feeling spreading through his body like a virus and shakes his head, because no, it really doesn’t. “You didn’t come here for me,” Andrew says. There is no other reason Andrew can imagine someone like Higgins being here, especially considering their phone call and the reason for their phone call. “You came on a witch hunt I already said I wouldn’t help you with. Give me one good reason to not cut your throat, would you?” 

Someone down the hall hisses under their breath and Andrew isn’t surprised at all to see not only Dan, but also Neil and Nicky looking at them with big eyes. If it wasn’t for the anger churning within him, hungry for destruction and making his fingers itch for one of the cool knives pressed against his forearms, Andrew thinks he might have wagged his fingers at them. 

Higgins looks unfazed by the threat and lowers his arms again. “I was wrong,” he says, and Andrew barely holds back on the amused _I Told You So_. “I know that now. The investigation on him turned up nothing.” 

“I warned you,” Andrew says and blinks. The smile on his face grows, shows off more and more of his teeth, and he lets it twist into something more dangerous as the pressure of the sea raging inside of him grows stronger. 

“We were looking for the wrong person, weren’t we?” Higgins asks then and holds out a hand as if to stop Andrew from slamming the door in his face. Andrew is suddenly very tempted to smash his face against the wood. “I think I’ve got it right this time, but I can’t do anything without a complaining witness. The other kids won’t speak up,” he says and everything inside of Andrew stops, once more. 

The anger is gone, snuffed out like the smallest of flames, and there is something else, something darker and more twisted and sinister in a way his anger isn’t, showing its face. 

“They don’t trust me that much. You’re all I’ve got.” 

Andrew’s attention is fully on Higgins now, gone is the urge to smash the Officer’s face into the wood and the urge to slip his fingers underneath his armbands, and another feelings bubbles to the surface. It’s a familiar one, one he knows like the back of his hand and his own face. 

“Kids?” he asks. “Kids, plural. You only mentioned one last time, Pig. How many are you talking about? How many has she had?” 

“You wouldn’t care about the number unless there really was something there for me to find,” Higgins says, and he says it quiet and accusingly, as if Andrew is to blame for anything here when the pointy shards of a glass with a name like a promise surround him like corpses that crunch and hurt after every step you take. “Just yes or no, Andrew. That’s all I want. That’s all I need right now. I’ll give you a name, you give me an answer, and I promise I’ll go away.” 

“You promise,” Andrew repeats, highly entertained by that one. Entertained because Higgins is dumb enough to think a promise from him means anything to Andrew right after proving how much it doesn’t mean. “You’ll break that promise inside a week, Pig. Don’t pretend otherwise.” Andrew motions into the direction of the stairs. “Do I have to walk you out to make sure you leave or will you—” 

But then Higgins says, equally as quietly as a few seconds ago, “Drake” and the words die on Andrew’s tongue as if they had been letters made out of stone and tumbled right out of his mouth before they could be used to form anything coherent. 

There is the feeling again, dark and ugly and sharp and cold, and it sinks its claws into Andrew, rips him apart from the inside and spreads over his body like wildfire. It’s enough to push through the cloud of his drugs but not enough to keep him quiet for long — only long enough for him to think for a second. 

Andrew had known Higgins had broken the promise he made to Andrew when he called a few weeks ago to request Andrew’s help, when he was actually dumb enough to think Andrew would help in this case, much less when Higgins is involved, and it makes another wave of anger roll over him. 

It mixes with the glittery fog his medication puts over his thoughts, makes them spin and spin and spin faster like a ride in an amusement park, lets the pressure inside of him build as if he’s a bottle filled to the brim and Higgins is the one shaking it. “How many kids, Pig?” 

“Six, since you,” Higgins says and that is enough to get Andrew moving fast enough that he nearly shoves Higgins aside on his way to the stairs. And he takes the stairs (not without opening the door with enough force behind it that it slams against the wall behind it before closing with another loud noise) because Andrew needs to move, needs to keep up with his thoughts that keep running and running as if they’re trying to escape from something. 

The air outside is fresh and like a cool slap in the face, cooler where it slips through the material of his shirt and brushes his bare skin but it isn’t enough to stop Andrew’s thoughts — not that anything ever is. He takes out a cigarette from the pack in his pants and lights it as Higgins stops next to him, far enough away that Andrew can’t possibly burn him. 

By accident, of course. 

“Talk to me,” Higgins says then, as if that will actually work and it’s suddenly very funny to Andrew. This whole situation is enough to have amusement pop the bottle and make the insides spray everywhere, taint everything before the grin tugging at his lips dries it. 

“Yes, no, maybe, perhaps, not today,” Andrew says, and he knows it’s not what the Officer is waiting for but Andrew also knows that Higgins isn’t ready to hear what Andrew has to say, what memories keep repeating inside of him, again and again, like a broken record that doesn’t run out of batteries. 

No, Andrew thinks as he takes another drag and looks up at the clouds to spot one looking like a palm tree, Higgins isn’t ready to hear it. And especially not because Andrew knows that he and Drake happen to be good old friends that met when Drake went through the PAL program. It says a lot, really, that Higgins crossed the country on his own dime for a lead. It shows how desperate he is. 

But it’s not enough to make Andrew talk, because he knows it will be a waste of time to try when Higgins won’t believe him anyway. As if Andrew has ever truly lied when someone asked him for nothing but the truth. 

“What?” 

Andrew blinks and looks back down with his next exhale, cloud running out of his mouth and nose. “What?” Then he blinks again and flicks his cigarette, half smoked, away from him where it joins another half smoked one on the ground. “Oh! Right, how silly of me. Listen to me, and listen to me good, yeah?” Andrew holds up his hand as if he’s about to tell Higgins a secret and the corner of his mouth twitches up when Higgins leans into his direction. 

“I won’t hesitate to cut you open from top to bottom and let you sink to the bottom of the ocean if you show your face around here again. You’re not going to find what you’re searching for, and I really, really don’t like repeating myself.” Andrew waits a second, taps his foot once, twice, and then waits another one before he adds, with all the anger he had felt not five minutes ago, “So fuck off.” 

He turns around then and walks back inside, knowing that Higgins might be dumb as they come, dumber as Kevin even, but still smart enough to hear the truth in Andrew’s words and not follow him inside again. When he makes it up to the third floor again, there’s a small dent in the wall where the handle had slammed against earlier and it’s almost enough to make him snort. It doesn’t, but it’s a close thing. 

Dan is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed with Neil standing next to her when Andrew comes back, and he lifts his eyebrows at them. “A welcome party or the inquisition?” 

Before he has a chance to walk through his door and smoke through another three cigarettes to wash away the taste of his thoughts, Dan steps in front of the suite. Andrew stops, because he really doesn’t want to collide with her, but wraps his fingers around her upper arms in warning; this cocktail inside of him is still brewing, hot and dangerous, and he won’t hesitate to throw their dear captain out of his way if she takes too long. 

“Why are the police looking for you?” she asks as if she expects him to tell her the truth, as if they’re friends. 

It’s honestly ridiculous and makes him smile as he tilts his body towards her. “I’m not in trouble, oh captain my captain,” Andrew says, knowing that she won’t believe it and not caring at all. “The pig is just too incompetent to make his case without some outside help. Don’t try to make this your business, okay? I won’t let you.” 

“Don’t let it interfere with my team and I won’t.” Oh, Andrew will keep the team, or his group — and _Aaron_ — as far away from this as he humanly can. Dan steps aside and then asks, “Do you need Renee?” 

And that’s something, isn’t it? Andrew is sure she isn’t asking for his actual wellbeing, because they all think he’s the big bad wolf and Andrew is content enough to let them, but because there’s a bet running on this — on Renee and Andrew — and that they’re stupid enough to think Andrew is dating Renee is funny enough that it manages to break through the wall of anger shimmering inside of him. It breaks apart, into colorful sparkles that turn brighter and brighter with amusement. 

“Oh, Dan,” he says and lets his amusement and pity for them bleed into his words. “I don’t need anyone—” Andrew needs nothing, never will, not anymore “—Goodbye.” 

He lets the door slam shut behind him and leaves his hand on the doorknob for a second before he eventually locks it as the sounds of a video game and the page of a magazine getting turned reach his ears. 

*

Andrew actually has to make reservations at Sweetie’s for them on Friday even if they get there at half-past then because they’re nine people in total. 

There’s a small crowd of people waiting at the hostess stand when they enter, but an L-shaped corner booth is marked with a RESERVED placard. It’s a booth that’s technically intended for eight people, and not nine like they are, but it works for the Foxes since both Aaron and Andrew are five feet tall. 

They squish into it thigh-to-thigh, with Andrew in the corner with Kevin to one side and the wall to the other, and start pouring over the menus. On a usual night, they’d settle for just ice cream and cracker dust, but they’d had a game before coming here and it means that the last time anyone ate was about six hours ago. 

While Nicky tries to make conversation work between all of them, because he’s the only one out of Andrew’s group who hates how isolated his dear cousins are, which he fails at hilariously in Andrew’s opinion, Aaron completely refuses to speak with any of the upperclassmen and Andrew, who had taken his pill during the halftime of the game since Renee is allowed to play as a goalkeeper again, is still buzzing with energy and lets it out on the others. 

It’s funny to watch for Andrew, how much Nicky seems to be allergic to silence between the whole team all of a sudden, and keeps throwing out topic after topic to avoid the table going silent. Renee, Dan and Matt seem happy to play along and do the same while Allison and Kevin get slower involved. Neil, Andrew notices however (because he can’t seem to stop noticing him), seems to stay out of it for the beginning but then helps Nicky out now and then. 

They’re working on dessert, ice cream as always, when Andrew feels the effects of his drugs and his high slowly and noticeably petering out. He doesn’t miss the curious looks the upperclassmen send him when he gets quieter and quieter, and finds that he can’t really blame them; his withdrawal isn’t a new thing, not at all, but they always see it through the smokescreen of a game and never this close before them without the court and another team yanking their focus elsewhere. 

Oh, Andrew thinks as his stomach twists when he looks up and meets their stares, he cannot wait to see how they react to him easing his withdrawal with alcohol and dust. He cannot wait for them to see how much cooler and how much harder, how much more like the monster they think he is, he becomes. 

He rams his elbow into Kevin’s side and acknowledges their attention on him with a sly grin. Kevin shifts after that and there’s the unmistakable sound of pills rattling against plastic. Andrew looks down, looks at where Kevin has his hand in one of his pockets and undoubtedly on his pill bottle, and feels the tug, the need to take them and swallow them down. 

He’s not amused by the silent offer, not at all, but he lets a slow smile curve on his lips anyway as he drags his stare back up to Kevin’s face. 

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Andrew tells him through the effort it takes to keep his lips tilted upwards. “I don’t want blood in my ice cream.” 

Kevin only shrugs at that and pulls his hand free; the upperclassmen are silent on the other side of the table. Andrew quickly loses interest in them, and especially in their wide eyed staring, and looks at the window. It doesn’t do much, seeing as how dark it is outside and how bright it is inside, and Andrew gazes at his reflection as he hears Neil say something in French. Kevin answers something in the same second Andrew’s phone begins to buzz inside of his pocket. 

He snaps it open, sees who the message is from as Nicky whines, “That’s not Coach, is it? We won tonight. He’s not allowed to harass us.” 

“Just Bee! Bee being stupid. Bee being,” Andrew says and clicks on the message to open it. It shows Bee, a few feet away from the camera, clothed in a costume with red and black stripes. It’s silly, and exactly the thing he should’ve expected from her. “Ha. Look.” 

Nicky catches his phone when he tosses it to him and laughs before showing it to Neil, who doesn’t react at all — not that Andrew is surprised by that. Then Nicky passes it back to Andrew via Neil and Kevin and Andrew begins typing a response. He sends a few random letters, then something that could be considered a thumbs up. 

“She’s with Coach?” Dan asks. 

“Coach and Abby invited her over,” Andrew says, repeating something she had told him in their last session, without looking up. He decides to send some more random letters, then another thumbs up. 

“Why is she messaging you?” Neil asks. 

“Oh,” Andrew says and puts his phone away again, “she does that sometimes.” 

It takes Neil a few seconds to answer and when he does, he sounds as suspicious of her as Andrew knows he is. “Why do you let her?” 

Renee smiles at him from across the table. “Not everyone dislikes her.”

“What?” Dan asks, looking startled as if the thought of Neil not liking someone when he’d been acting like a scared animal when he first came to Palmetto is something to be surprised by. “What do you have against Betsy?” 

“She’s a psychiatrist,” Neil says, as if that explains it. “I distrust her on principle.”

Matt smiles through a frown and takes a bite of his ice cream. “Give her a chance,” he says. “She’s good people.” 

“She’s pretty badass, you mean,” Nicky says and crosses his arms on the table, elbow shoving Aaron’s ice cream to the left. “I was really worried for her when we all went for our first meet-and-greet.” He wags his thumb to gesture between himself and Aaron. “Andrew goes through shrinks like he’s trying to break a world record only he knows about. She’s his eighth one at least.” 

“Thirteenth,” Andrew corrects, the ones before her flashing through his memories slow enough that he can count them even if he doesn’t need to. He remembers his first meeting with her, remembers asking what would happen if he stabbed her and her saying that it wouldn’t be very fortunate for both of them and laughing. “She made sure to ask me if I was superstitious.” 

“Some insane number,” Nicky says. “But when Andrew waltzed out of her office at the end of his first session with her, she was right on his heels and completely unfazed. Pretty impressive, right?” 

“No,” Neil says, sounding completely bored and Andrew knows he would’ve laughed at his tone any other day. 

Nicky just sighs. “Eat your ice cream, jerk.” 

They leave eventually, when everyone is done, and Andrew makes sure to bring a stack of napkins away from the table with him that he dumps on Kevin’s lap for Kevin to sort on the drive to the club as soon as the striker sits down in the passenger seat. 

By the time they make it to Eden’s Twilight, there is the familiar wall between Andrew and the outside world that makes everything so much more muted and dull, the filter of color that Andrew looks through every day after taking his meds is gone, and so is his smile for the night. 

The upperclassmen come in Allison's car and she double-parks beside him when Nicky pulls over at the curb out front of Eden’s Twilight to let everyone out. Andrew collects two VIP parking passes from the bouncer on duty, and lets Kevin take one to give to Allison. The bouncer, Bruce is his name, looks utterly confused by how many people Andrew has with him, but he waves them through without a question and Andrew pushes open a second set of doors to lead them into the club. 

It’s filled to the brim, which is to be expected on a day close to Halloween, and it takes work to find a table through the buzzing and dancing crowd. The one they manage to find has only two stools left, but it’s nothing more than inconsequential to Andrew. Most of the Foxes will end up on the dance floor anyway. 

He snags the hem of Neil’s shirt as he leaves the rest of their teammates to guard the table and drags the striker with him through the crowd toward the bar for their first round. 

It takes Roland a couple of minutes to work his way to them and when he finally does, Andrew wordlessly gestures over his shoulder toward their table. Roland follows the direction he pointed in and Andrew knows he spotted everyone when his eyebrows wander up. 

“All grown up and making friends?” he asks and then grins. “Never thought I’d see the day.” 

That is, possibly, the most idiotic thing Andrew has heard the whole night and it does nothing more than let a spark of annoyance thunk against the wall inside of him. “I’ll tip you double if you never say such stupid things again.” 

Roland’s grin grows wider at this and he does another headcount before setting up a tray for them. Since he knows the tastes of Andrew and the rest of his group, he doesn’t need to ask what they want; he easily throws in a couple of the bar’s more popular concoctions for the upperclassmen. And he doesn’t stop at eight drinks, but keeps going close to twenty. Andrew stopped questioning Roland’s odd behavior long ago. 

“How many DDs?” 

“Just two.” 

Andrew takes the tray Roland slides his way after adding two cans of soda and follows Neil back to their table where he passes one of the cans to Renee and leaves the other one for Neil. No one drinks until Allison and Nicky catch up with them, and Andrew is content enough to let the music drown out his quicker than usual pulse. 

When they finally catch up, Andrew wastes no time emptying two glasses to chase away the sour taste that has been building up at the back of his throat on the way here and when the tray is empty again, it’s Renee who follows him to help. She clears the way for him easily enough and then leans against the bar next to him when Roland mixes their drinks with his back to them. 

“I can already hear more money falling into the pool,” Andrew says and Renee smiles at him because she knows what he means. And then a thought comes to him, and it’s fleeting, barely brushing over the other thoughts in his head with the weight of a feather and he adds, “Neil will come see you soon, I assume.”

“Does it bother you?” she asks, only about the first thing Andrew said because she knows him better than to question him, and it’s with the same smile on her face, with the darkness that mirrors his own deep, deep hidden away in her eyes. 

Andrew almost snorts when Rolands puts down and slides the tray back to him. “Don’t ask stupid questions.” 

The conversation at their table slows at the arrival of the drinks and the packets of cracker dust that Kevin pulls out of his pocket completely bring it to a halt. Matt, Renee and Neil all abstain and Andrew makes short work of dividing the packs between everyone while keeping the most to himself since his system is able to tolerate far more than anyone else’s ever could. 

The others race each other through some rounds before heading to the dancefloor, exactly like Andrew knew they would — only Renee stays behind with Andrew, Neil and Kevin to finish her can of soda. 

Andrew quickly grows bored of looking at the empty cups on the table everywhere and makes work of stacking them on the tray before getting up again. He’s only getting enough drinks for himself and Kevin this time, which means that he doesn’t need any help for it, but half a blink after he arrives at the bar, Neil squeezes into the space at Andrew’s side and he’s close enough that Andrew can feel the warmth radiating from his body. 

And it’s stupid and interesting and a problem all at the same time because there are people around them that Andrew should be able to feel like this, but he doesn’t. 

He does, however, push his tray across the counter for Roland to take and slants a look at Neil. “Stop hiding. This was your idea; deal with the consequences.” 

“It’s not that easy,” Neil says as if it explains anything. 

And then there’s a look in his dark eyes, a look that Andrew recognizes from when they stood in Wymack’s apartment, from when they sat across from each other on the bench with their skin touching, and it’s dangerous because Andrew finds that he can’t look away. 

“I’ve never been in a position where I could get to know people,” Neil says. “I know I have to let them in if we’re going to make it through the season, but it’d be easier if they were just names and faces. How have you stayed disconnected for so long?” 

The answer to that question, honest and quick, is that Andrew isn’t interested in any of them because they put a label on him and go by that; they see what they want to see and only care for their side of any story. Andrew doesn’t fit into any of their boxes, he never will, and they’re Renee’s to keep. None of them have made any promises to Andrew, not that he thinks even a single one could hold them. But he doesn’t say all of that and instead goes with, “They’re not interesting enough to keep my attention.” 

“Kevin is. So is your brother, apparently.” It’s the truth, so Andrew doesn’t bother acknowledging that. Neil narrows his eyes. “What about Renee.” 

And, _oh_. There it is. “What about her?” 

“She’s not interesting?”

“She’s useful.” She sees Andrew for what he is, sees him as an equal, instead of following the words of the others. She sees the darkness inside of Andrew without flinching and lets her own show. She understands him, to a part. 

Neil frowns as if he expected a different answer. Which, if he talked to the upperclassmen and got their relationship as wrong as they did, makes perfect sense. “That’s it?” 

“You expected a different answer?” 

“Maybe,” Neil says and keeps frowning when Roland gets their tray. It’s amusing, really, how much this seems to bother Neil and how much he seems to get everything wrong, as much as the others do, and it’s enough to make Andrew’s lips twitch up. “Most everyone is waiting for something to happen with you two. Even Nicky thinks it’s inevitable. But Renee promised Allison nothing would come of it. Why?” 

“Does it matter?” Andrew asks back, because this shouldn’t matter, not to Neil. Because this sudden interest Neil seems to be having is even more interesting to Andrew. Because Andrew knows that it’s a problem and dangerous, that when he looks at Neil and feels like he’s falling down a high building, soaring through the air toward the ground without a parachute. Because Andrew knows better than to let this illusion of electricity spreading through his body become normal when he knows it will be ripped out of his hands one way or another when he becomes sober for good. 

Neil shrugs. “Yes? No? It should be—it is—irrelevant, but..” He hesitates but Andrew just keeps looking at him without saying a word until Neil finds his voice again. “I’m just trying to understand.” 

“Sometimes,” Andrew says and means, infuriatingly, almost always, “you’re interesting enough to keep around. Other times you’re so astoundingly stupid I can barely stand the sight of you.” 

It’s a wonder, really, that Neil had been able to figure out multiple things quicker than this, like the time he called Andrew acting as Aaron as he picked Neil up from the airport, but can’t seem to put two and two together here. 

“Forget it,” Neil says with a scowl. “I’ll ask Renee.” 

And that’s almost funny, because Andrew knows that Neil hasn’t been alone with Renee after their first trip to Bee. “You’ll have to stop avoiding her first.” 

Neil doesn’t give Andrew an answer to that and when Roland returns their tray, they make their way back to the table. Renee’s soda can is sideways on the table, obviously empty, but it seems like she was keeping Kevin company. As soon as Andrew puts down the tray and sits down, she blinks at Neil. “Are you not coming?” 

“No,” Neil says, and again avoids being alone with Renee. It would have been nothing more than a short walk to find the others, but it proves what Andrew said a few moments ago. If Neil ever gets over himself and approaches Renee, he’s welcome to get in on the reason the upperclassmen’s bet is nothing but a pile of trash. 

Neil stands between Andrew and Kevin’s chairs like a living furnace before walking off. 

The empty glass is cool when Andrew puts it back onto the table and rests the tips of his fingers against it, the burn of the alcohol as it runs down his throat familiar. He thinks about it again, then. It really, really shouldn’t matter; the way he seems to be in flames from the inside out, that Neil is interesting and a puzzle and a door closed shut with twenty locks and no keys in sight and a book written in a language no one can read or translate. 

Because this interest is dangerous and bad and Andrew needs to let go of the rubber band before it eventually snaps like he knows it will and leaves him with the longer end, before he becomes sober and this all turns out to be a side effect he hasn’t been warned about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI i’m back, for now. 
> 
> first of all, i know i thank people when they comment on this fic but i just feel like i should thank every single person who does take the time to leave some words — no matter how many — a big thank you because i love reading them and they mean a lot to me. so... thank you. genuinely. 
> 
> now that that’s out of the way, i DO hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as i did writing it back in... uh.. 2020.. 
> 
> my update schedule will remain a big question mark, i’m very sorry about that. sometimes i just feel like a puddle.
> 
> but as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for mentions of cass and the spears!

Andrew and Aaron’s birthday falls on a Saturday that Andrew spends sitting on his desk and smoking with his head turned to the side and a mix of emotions whirling inside of him like a tornado. 

It’s as if there’s a clock ticking inside of him that changes from nineteen to twenty. To another milestone, Bee had said this morning when she called him, as if turning one year older than Andrew ever thought he would be, was something to actually celebrate and be proud of. Bee had always been rather silly, Andrew thinks as he turns his gaze up to the horizon where the day looms like a personal tsunami. 

It has never been anything special to him, the day on which he was put into a world full of unkindness and unfairness. The day on which Tilda Minyard had given birth to him and his brother only to give them away and take one of them back later but hand both of them to something like tragedy on a silver platter. 

No, the excitement Andrew had seen on the other children's faces in the system had been brutally washed out of him before he was even able to read and as if he was a piece of clothing with a big stain on it that refuses to leave. 

No, the day feels like it will bodily drag Andrew across the state to throw him into the water of the tsunami that’s raging and snarling inside of him, like it will drop him into it like a rag doll and leave the body of a young man behind like the shell Andrew feels like on most days. 

That would truly be inconsiderate, he thinks as he watches the sun peek out from between the dark grey clouds hanging low in the air above him and shadows forming behind the cars in the parking lot, the handful of people walking around the campus, the street lamps. He watches as they stretch and grow longer and into more obscure silhouettes as time passes. No, being dragged into a body of water would not be the best thing. 

Especially since Andrew has never learned how to swim in his life, but he guesses that there is something amusing enough about the thought that it makes him smile around his next cigarette; wide and then even wider and more sinister. 

A ringtone comes to life in the apartment, and it’s the only noise as the sounds of the video game Aaron and Nicky are playing come to a halt as Nicky answers it with a quiet, “Hello?” Andrew turns in time to see the color drain from his cousin’s face, a small spark of curiosity pushing through the thick fog ruling Andrew’s head before it’s washed away by amusement at the face Nicky makes. “What do you want?” 

Kevin turns a page of the newspaper that’s spread out on his desk and that he most likely uses to check the scores of the games from the night before around the nation, and the sound of thin paper crinkling is oddly loud in the sudden quiet as Nicky listens to what the person on the other side is saying. 

That is, until he puts his phone from his ear to hang up and shoot to his feet only to leave the suite without another word. 

Andrew looks at the frozen screen for a second, looks at the colors jumping around in the square of the loading screen, looks at the reds and blues and his thoughts wander to another blue. He forcefully rips his gaze away then and takes another drag of his cigarette. 

The smoke waltzes around the air with an odour as rancid as sewage (or, Andrew thinks with enough amusement that his lips curl up at the corners as he watches a big cloud covering the bright sun, Kevin’s disgusting breath), curls and twists and turns this way and that, through the air as if it’s excited to be swept away into the gentle breeze blowing outside before it turns invisible and leaves only the smell. A small part of it obscures the room, like a very thin layer of fog or a filter over a photograph, before it slowly disappears too. 

He makes it halfway through the cigarette, tolerates the tendrils of it swirling into his lungs with a familiar burn, before then there’s another sound, a quiet and perfunctory knock, that has Andrew’s attention snap from the sky to the door — because he knows that Nicky has a key that he has with him because Andrew hasn’t stolen it again, because he knows Nicky wouldn’t knock. 

“Oh, Neil!” Andrew wags his cigarette at Neil in something like a greeting when the striker closes the door behind him. There is the ever present pull of his stomach as Neil takes a look around, but it pales in comparison to the whirlwind inside of him. “Hello.” 

Neil’s eyebrows pull together as he looks from the TV to where Andrew is sitting on his desk and looking back. “Can we talk?” 

“Today’s not a good day,” Andrew says, and it’s the truth. He feels like a glass of water, too full for Neil to let the sink run. Like a rubber band stretched too far for whatever tugging and pulling Neil is bracing for from the look on his face. Andrew is holding on to the cliff separating him from the deadly water with only one hand, and he feels like he’s slipping. “Try again tomorrow.” 

“I wouldn’t crash your birthday party if it wasn’t important.” 

Neil’s face stays completely bored as he says it, eyes calmly by his side, and it really, really shouldn’t be as interesting to Andrew as it is. “Sarcasm from Neil? Your repertoire of talents is ever-expanding.” 

“Two minutes,” Neil says. 

“So persistent,” Andrew says and then hums around his cigarette as he takes a second to think. 

From what he knows about Neil, which isn’t all that much, it must be something important, or close to, because Andrew can count on one finger how many times Neil has acted like this before. And back then it was about staying at Palmetto. It makes curiosity bubble up inside of him again, but another sort of it (a sharper, hotter spark of it that runs along his skin like tiny flames) and it wins the tug of war against the absolute need to be difficult that his medication awakens inside of him. 

He flicks his cigarette out of the window where it gets blown away before it even has the chance to lose the fight against gravity and Andrew tugs the window closed before leading Neil into the bedroom. There’s the sound of the door closing and Andrew walks another step, then two and three before he turns to face Neil. 

“Tick tock,” Andrew says and tilts his head to the side when Neil doesn’t start talking immediately. “You have my attention; now keep my interest.” 

“Nicky’s mother called.” 

“Oops,” Andrew says and makes a buzzing sound. Maybe he should’ve expected this, because it connects the dots and explains why Nicky turned the same color of the wall in the living room, but those are words that definitely won’t succeed in making Andrew listen. He doesn’t particularly feel like talking about Maria Hemmick, not now or ever but especially not today. “Time’s up.” 

He steps forward, his thoughts already going back to the pack of cigarettes he has on the desk, but then there’s an arm and it doesn’t mean anything; Andrew knows Neil is as aware as himself that Andrew is more than capable of forcing his way through if he really wants to. The gesture is more for show than anything else, but it has Andrew rocking to a stop anyway as his curiosity comes back.

Neil blinks at him and Andrew blinks back. “Nicky’s mother invited him home for Thanksgiving.” 

“He said yes,” Andrew says, and it’s not really a question because he knows his cousin. He knows how much Nicky wishes for things to be different between himself and his parents, even if he doesn’t care about it. “Oh, Nicky, an optimist until the day he dies. You’d think he would know better by now—” it’s only a little hypocritical of Andrew to say this, because Andrew knows that he himself should know better than to let this attraction inside of him grow until he won’t be able to stop it anymore “—but he’ll go and come back boo-hoo.” Andrew lifts his hand to mime scrubbing away tears. “Their love has a price tag he can’t pay. He won’t give Erik up for them.” 

“They’re not after Erik this time,” Neil says and Andrew tilts his head again. “They’re battering for you.” And there it is. The sound of the other shoe dropping echoes inside of Andrew’s head, bounces from one side to the other like his thoughts and almost drowns out Neil’s next words. “Nicky can’t go unless he brings you and Aaron with him.” 

“Problem solved,” Andrew says with a smile; he feels something crack inside of him at those words. 

It would’ve been one thing for him to go, just him, and play happy with his dear uncle and aunt. To put himself down, to let some of the darkness slumbering inside of him awaken and eat him alive from the inside out — but bringing _Aaron_ , his brother who mirrors Andrew in almost every way down to their cores, near Maria (near Luther) when a sixteen letter word keeps echoing inside his head like sounds in a cave is an entirely different thing. 

But this isn’t anything Neil needs to know, not know or ever if Andrew has any say in it, so he lets his thoughts wander to their last Thanksgiving as he says, “Denied. Maybe Abby will cook us a turkey instead. She did last year. She’s a decent cook but can’t bake to save her life. We’ll have to bring a frozen pie again.” 

Neil narrows his eyes at that, at Andrew’s try to distract him. “Why won’t you go?” 

“Why would I?” Andrew asks back because, really, why would he damn himself to this when there’s a mile long list with reasons that all point back to Luther. “Luther and I aren’t friends.” 

“Last I checked, we’re not your friends either,” Neil says, which Andrew blinks at because it’s nothing but the truth. “You still put up with us, so why won’t you tolerate Luther? Nicky assumes it has to do with the way you met—” oh, if only it were that easy “—but Luther’s the one who got you out from juvie and back home with your mother, isn’t he?” 

And that—that is the truth. 

Luther had neatly gotten Andrew out of juvie after the twins had met for the first time, after Andrew had looked at the brother he never wanted and never asked for, at the brother who looked like himself in almost every possible way, at the brother with shaking hands and glassy eyes that spoke of more substances than nerves ever could. Luther had brought Andrew to Aaron and Tilda, who isn’t his mother and never has been—

“She was not my mother,” Andrew tells Neil and as he waits a moment to make sure that Neil understands that, he lets his thoughts run wild. 

—but Luther had also taken the trust Andrew had given him, the trust that had been as fragile as a newborn, and let it drop to the ground and shatter into thousands of small, sharp pieces. 

He makes a cutting gesture with his hand as if it’s possible to get rid of his thoughts like that as they switch from one topic to another. 

The word mother had never meant much to Andrew, not after growing up the way he did and landing in the system where he fought tooth and nail to even be. After going from one disaster to the next in the shape of families and pieces of him splintering and breaking and turning into something dark and sinister. 

No, the word had never meant something to him, had never sparked any interest in him and it doesn’t now, not anymore, but he remembers ( _and, oh, he remembers_ ) how it had once. How much it had felt like the whisper of a feather on his skin, a touch so warm that it had kept him warm even in the harshest winter. A smile so genuine and bright that it had felt like tilting his head back and looking into the sun on an afternoon in the summer aimed at him.

“Cass, though, Cass? Cass would have been. She really wanted to be,” Andrew says and looks at the frown on Neil’s face as he says it. “Oh, you don’t know. Here’s a story for you, Neil. Listening?” he asks and doesn’t wait for an answer before he continues. “Cass wanted to keep me. She wanted to adopt me. Andrew Joseph Spear, she said.” 

And how proud and happy she had sounded. It had sounded good to him back then, paired with the scent of roses and spring that Cass’ always smelled like. But it doesn’t, not anymore. The words have been tainted a long time ago; taken by the tip and dipped into darkness where they drowned and became something ugly. Something sinister. 

“She collected all the paperwork but she wouldn’t file without my consent. She thought I was old enough to choose.” 

“Spear,” Neil echoes, and Andrew hates, and he hates it so much, how it sounds coming out of his mouth. “Like—”

“Richard Spear,” Andrew finishes for him before Neil has the chance to say this differently. Before he has the chance to say it differently and end this conversation with something more than the taste of bitterness on his tongue. “I told you all about him, yes? My last foster father.” 

Neil blinks at him and is quiet for a moment, a moment that Andrew spends running his eyes over Neil’s face and the sharp cut of his jaw. “You mentioned him,” he then says, slowly. “What happened to make the adoption fall through, your arrest?” 

Oh, if only that had been it, no? If only the arrest had been the reason for the adoption not to go through, and not the nightmare come to life by Cass’ own flesh and blood. 

“No, you have it backwards. I went to juvie because she wanted to adopt me.” 

Because he found out about Aaron, and Andrew hadn’t been the only one who found out about it. And he really, really couldn’t have let anything else happen. 

“But she didn’t give up on me. She thought a stable home could straighten me out, she said. Her biological son,” Andrew says, and _there_ it is; the darkness, the endless void inside of him, sinks her claws into Andrew’s flesh and _pulls_ , “wanted to join the Marines after high school, so she even offered to reallocate part of his college fund to me. She wanted me to have a future.” Then, with the knowledge that Neil will understand, he says, “My own Stephanie Walker, of a sort.” 

It takes only a moment, but then Neil nods as he follows. Andrew rocks onto the balls of his feet, the darkness mixing with the energy his drugs give him and creating something dangerous, and reaches for Neil to wrap his hands around the striker’s neck. 

It’s enough to make Andrew focus a little more, to make him feel like fireworks and falling, and the feeling of Neil’s pulse against his palms is almost enough to ground him. It’s ridiculous and nothing that should happen, nothing Andrew should let happen, but he ignores it and starts tapping his thumbs against Neil’s throat in time to Neil’s pulse instead. 

“Luther would let her have me if it was what I wanted,” Andrew says and looks into Neil’s eyes, brown and wrong and wide enough that he can see his own smile looking back. “He knew Aaron’s mother wanted nothing to do with me, but he wanted to make things right with me somehow. If Cass was ‘right’, he would fight on her behalf to get the adoption approved.” It’s like a bottle pops inside of him, the cork flies off with a loud bang, and amusement runs down the cool glass as Andrew smiles wider. “Couldn’t have that, could we?” 

“Why not?” Neil asks him, his eyes running over Andrew’s face in confusion. “What did Cass do to you?” 

That isn’t what Andrew had been expecting, and it’s enough to make surprise spark inside of him. “Cass would never do anything to me.” 

“Then what went wrong.” 

A lot of things, Andrew thinks but doesn’t say it. What he says instead is, “That’s a different story.” And one he doesn’t want to tell for a very, very long time. He doesn’t want a repeat of the last time, now does he? “This story is about Cass and Luther, isn’t it? Luther said he could send me back to Cass. I gave him a secret to make sure he wouldn’t.” 

“And he told someone,” Neil guesses. 

“No,” Andrew says. This would be a different story, with more twists and turns, if that had been the case. He starts tapping his fingers faster, smiles a little wider as the memories play in his head, an eternal repeat of the same movie he has seen again and again. “That’s too easy. These kinds of secrets are not given out lightly. You know that,” he says, because it’s the truth. He knows that, somehow, Neil understands even if he doesn’t know what exactly Andrew is talking about. “We calculate collateral damage and fallout. But Luther did not tell. He chose to not believe me at all. And that’s a thousand times worse, you see.” 

Neil swallows and Andrew feels it more than he sees or hears it. “That depends on the secret.”

“True,” Andrew says and lets Neil go to wheel away. He takes a second to look down at his palms, half expecting them to be red and burned from the heat of Neil’s skin on his own. “Maybe it comes as a surprise to you, Neil, but I am not a very trusting person. If I tell a man the sky is blue and he tells me that I am wrong, I am not inclined to give him a second chance.” He looks out of the window, looks at the clouds being dragged in one direction by the wind. At the leaves of trees shaking with the force of it. “I see no reason to.” 

“So did Luther not believe you or did he say you were wrong?” Neil asks and everything in Andrew freezes for a moment before it starts again. “There is a significant difference between the two.” 

“Oh.” Andrew half-turns to face Neil again. He meets Neil’s dark eyes, intelligent and full of darkness and secrets guarded until the end. Yes, he supposes, there really is a significant difference. “Sometimes I forget you are sharper than you look.” 

Neil’s face does something funny then. His eyebrows pull together in a frown big enough to make wrinkles appear on his forehead. He lowers his eyes, pulls his lip between his teeth. And then he looks up again, something Andrew decides he doesn’t like in his eyes, and says, “He said it was a misunderstanding.” 

Everything in Andrew goes perfectly still at the sound of that word and so does his whole body before he can help himself and it isn’t for longer than a second, but Neil isn’t a complete idiot. 

Anger is a big wave in the tsunami breaking through the ice, but it’s mixed with amusement and curiosity and so much more with the mission to drown Andrew. To leave him gasping for air when there is no air to breathe around. 

“Shh,” Andrew says, a sound that someone else would use to reassure a cornered animal. “Shh, don’t say that. I hate the sound of that word,” he says, something sour crawling up the back of his throat before he swallows it down. “I warned you once so you’d know better than to use it again. Why would you risk it?” 

“Andrew—”

“No,” Andrew says, a warning more than anything else. He doesn’t raise his voice, but he doesn’t have to. There is absolutely no way this conversation will get pushed into the wrong direction more than it already has. 

“That was five years ago,” Neil says and something small and warm uncurls in his stomach as the topic changes back. Andrew doesn’t care enough to snuff the flame out before it can grow. “Maybe he’s sorry.” 

That is not something that is likely, not with a man like Luther Hemmick, and Andrew thinks Neil only says this because he hasn’t actually met him before. “You say that because you haven’t met Luther,” he says then, and voices his thoughts. 

“Can I?” 

Andrew lets Neil’s words wash over him as if they’re another wave from the ocean with the water full of salt, and he’s a stone at the shore getting his edges filed and made sharper into something more dangerous. 

They tilt upwards at the end, Neil’s words do, incredibly like a question and Andrew realizes, a heartbeat later and with something dangerously close to wonder, that it is a question aimed at him and not a demand like he’s become used to. 

And that is enough to get Andrew’s full attention. It’s enough to have him turn all the way, look at Neil’s form, and blink. 

There’s sunlight spilling into the room from the window, through the cracks of the blanket of clouds in the sky, and it throws Neil’s face into shadows that aren’t enough to soften the sharp edges of his jaw. Shadows that aren’t enough to still the fire slowly licking up Andrew’s chest from the inside out. Shadows that aren’t enough to, once again, not make Neil look like a fragment of Andrew’s imagination. 

“Oh? What?” Andrew asks, sure that his ears must betray him and that Neil is not actually asking what Andrew thinks he’s asking. “Neil, you wouldn’t know what to do with a god-fearing minister. You can barely stand to be around Renee. There’s no way you could last a sit-down with Luther. He’d end up exorcising you when you snapped.” 

Neil shrugs. “It could be entertaining.” 

“It could be,” Andrew says, because it’s the truth. 

“Let’s all go,” Neil says then and Andrew raises one of his eyebrows. “Aaron will agree for Nicky’s sake and Nicky can see if his parents have come around.” Andrew doesn’t like the idea of Aaron stepping a foot into that house, but he lets Neil continue. “There’s no way you’ll let Kevin that far out of your sights, so take him with you. I’ll tag along so you can harass me instead of Luther. Imagine how uncomfortable Nicky’s parents will be if they have to contend with the five of us.” 

It does sound like a recipe for disaster, in Andrew’s honest opinion, but then again, those are always the most fun, the most amusing to watch happen and cause happen to him. He blinks. “Or we could stay here.” 

“Not as interesting,” Neil says and Andrew almost snorts. 

“Appealing to my nonexistent attention span is a cheap trick,” Andrew says. A butterfly could probably fly by and hold his attention when he’s on his meds, which is almost always. 

“But is it effective?” 

“You wish it was.” 

“Please?”

Another small spark of anger comes to life inside of him, but it’s gone in the next and Andrew’s attention wanders as the colors in the room begin to brighten with the reappearance of the sun. The clouds lift. “I hate that word.”

“Does your shrink know you have a grudge against half of the English language?” Neil asks. 

It’s something Bee had learned very, very early as she became Andrew’s therapist. And she has learned, she has memorized this and never says any of the words Andrew doesn’t want to hear because she’s silly like that. It makes his grin come back. 

“I know you can’t understand this because you’ve never had a real family, but Nicky has to give his parents another try,” Neil says. “If you’re lucky, this dinner will be the breaking point. Nicky’s got his hopes up thinking his mother’s come around.” 

Oh, Nicky really, really needs to learn that hoping for stuff, for anything, gets people nowhere. Especially not with people like Maria and Luther. Andrew is certain that there is another reason for them to want Andrew to come, but he can’t make sense of it. Yet. 

“If she lets him down again, he might be ready to walk away for good.” 

And here’s the thing: Andrew knows that Neil has a point. He also knows that there’s a high chance of this happening, of Maria and Luther Hemmick fucking up, because he has never seen them do anything but fucking up, but Andrew doesn’t say this and starts humming instead. Nicky will not look back again when they eventually fuck up, which should be sooner rather than later, and Andrew hates to admit this but this little get together is the closest date for this. 

He makes a decision and reaches for Neil again to hook his fingers in Neil’s shirt collar. He tugs at it lightly. Once, then another time. “One last chance,” Andrew says then. “That’s all I’m going to give Nicky. But I won’t spend Thanksgiving with them, and I won’t play nice. Get Nicky to change the date and get your invitation. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Neil says immediately. 

“We’re all going to regret this,” Andrew says and because there is something to this whole situation that he’s not seeing, a piece of the whole thing that has been hidden out of reach. He lets go of Neil with a smile. “Nicky most of all if his father winds up dead.” 

Neil gets that look on his face again, and then he asks, “Did you really kill Aaron’s mother?” 

“That was a tragic accident.” It’s neither a lie, nor the full truth but it’s enough to make Andrew’s smile widen. “Didn’t you read the police reports?” he asks because you’d think someone like Neil, who has a whole binder on Kevin and Riko alone, would have done his research on the people around them as well. 

“Guess she hit him one time too many. I warned her not to lay a hand on him, but she didn’t listen to me. She got what was coming to her,” he says. That, that is the truth and Andrew knows Neil didn’t offer anything in return but he also knows that he will come collect his truth when the time is right. “Does that frighten you, Neil?”

“My first memories are of people dying,” Neil says and blinks once. “I’m not afraid of you.” 

“That’s why you’re so interesting.” Interesting, to an extent that Andrew shouldn’t allow it to have as much of an effect as it does, but he feels like flying and falling, and it’s dangerous and strange and _too_ interesting. And entirely too addicting for something he knows will stop when he’s sober. “How aggravating.” 

“I’ll try to be more boring in the future.” 

“How considerate,” Andrew says and thinks, that that won’t be possible. He lifts his hand to motion between their faces. “This is a secret given on credit, Neil. Remember it, okay? I’ll ask you for something later.” And then, all of a sudden, the tsunami inside of him comes back with full force and Andrew feels bored. His attention starts to slip and his fingers itch for a cigarette. “We’re done talking for today, so goodbye. Send my cowardly cousin back soon.” 

Andrew doesn’t follow Neil when he leaves, but he also doesn’t watch him go and instead turns back to the window. At the horizon, far above from the ground, a cloud breaks apart in a curve that gets lit up by the sun like a blinding smile. 

The one on Andrew’s face is almost big enough to mirror it before the wind carries it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... hello, i’m back for now.
> 
> first, a big thank you for all the nice comments on the last chapter. reading them and seeing what people think is always very nice and makes me feel like someone dipped me into liquid gold. 
> 
> [scratches head] don’t have more to say other than 1. yes, i still feel like a puddle unfortunately and 2. yes, the uploading schedule will be this. 
> 
> i’d apologize but i.. am tired. OSNWOSNS 
> 
> as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE IN THIS CHAPTER.**
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> it is non descriptive, and while it is easily skippable if you scroll from the **bold sentence** to the next **bold sentence** , if you cannot bear to read past the first bold written sentence, or the whole chapter, please don’t. your safety and mental well-being come first. 
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> **the other trigger warnings include physical assault, drake spear (briefly), homophobia and non-descriptive vomiting.**  
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> again, if you cannot bear to read this chapter please don’t force yourself to and please, please be safe.**  
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They make their way to Columbia for the “family dinner”, like Nicky had called it with a thin layer of wonder in his voice, on a Sunday afternoon. 

Kevin had been the only one sniping about the road trip the week leading up to it before he had realized that he could get something out of it and nagged at Nicky and Andrew long enough until Andrew had thrown his still burning cigarette at him the evening before to shut him up. 

Apart from Eden’s Twilight and the house of Luther and Maria Hemmick, another place that interests them (read: Kevin and Neil, because Andrew is absolutely not interested in anything related to Exy and never will be) is Exites and they pull into the crowded parking lot to look for a heavier racquet for Neil before they make their way to the other end of Columbia. 

While larger sports stores around the state would have sections for Exy gear, Exites is the only store one hundred percent devoted to the sport, and in the end the reason Kevin agrees to come. That and the fact that Andrew won’t leave Kevin out of his sight anytime soon — not that Kevin would be capable to be alone for a longer while with no one around. 

“This is stupid,” Aaron tells Kevin for the fifth time since they’ve left the campus and when they get out of the car in front of the four-story high shop on the other side of the capital from Eden’s Twilight. “We just fixed the line-up. Now you’re going to screw us all over again.” 

Kevin ignores Aaron, which isn’t too surprising since the sound of them arguing about it on the ride for the first ten minutes had been greatly distracting from Andrew trying to concentrate on the clicks of the window controls he had pushed up and down and up and down, but Neil sighs as he gets out of the car after Andrew. “This is the best week for me to switch. We’re up against JD on Friday. You guys can take them without any help from me.” 

JD Campbell University, Andrew knows from what Wymack had told them the week before, aren’t only holding the place of the last-place in the southeastern district but are also the last match the Foxes will have in November before their Thanksgiving break. The last game of the season is in December, smack in the middle of exams and the Exy Christmas banquet on December 16th, which is something Andrew looks forward to with amusement as he recalls how _well_ the last banquet went. 

They pass a register as they enter the store and escape the slightly chilly air outside, and the cashier on duty actually spits out his coffee onto the counter in front of him when he sees Kevin. 

Andrew takes a look around at the fan material with players faces on it in the front half and before he has a chance to snag one of the scarfs with Kevin and Riko’s numbers on it to accidentally set it on fire because he’s terribly clumsy, _you see_ , he notices the motion of Nicky nudging Neil from the corner of his eye. 

“Come on,” his cousin says and jerks his chin in the direction of Kevin, who is talking to an older man with a nametag, his fake and nauseating media-smile in place, while the cashier watches with big eyes. “He’s going to be awhile.” 

Andrew takes in the security cameras attached to the ceiling between the lights and spares Kevin another look before he follows the other three up the stairs. 

The second floor, as it turns out, is mostly gear with court shoes, gear bags, and books. Small, chest high shelves with key chains, jewelry, and charms break up the sections and both Aaron and Nicky go to investigate. 

“Quickly now,” Andrew says to Neil and turns him to the next set of stairs before he looks down at the wristwatch he’s not wearing. “Let’s get this over with. I have places to be, you see?” 

“That eager to get to Nicky’s place?” Neil asks as they continue to the third floor. 

His words are almost enough to make Andrew go through with the sudden urge to trip Neil and make him roll down the stairs, but he just shakes his head with a sigh. “We aren’t going to Nicky’s place,” he says, because it’s the truth, because the house hasn’t been Nicky’s in a long, long time. “It’s his parents’ house now, Neil. Nicky has no place there. Hasn’t in years. But the sooner we are done playing around here—” 

The sooner they let this parade start, the sooner the other shoe will drop and the piece of the whole picture Andrew hasn’t been able to find the following days will make itself visible. 

“—the sooner we can go home,” he says instead of anything he's thinking, not that his thoughts should be of concern for Neil anyway. “Columbia is boring on Sundays. You understand, of course.” 

“Since I’m not affected by blue laws,” Neil says and sounds bored as he says it, which is truly rude since the blue laws affect everyone else in Andrew’s group and Neil should be more considerate because they’re a _team_ , “it doesn’t really matter to me.” 

“No team spirit,” Andrew says as they reach the third floor and manages to look away from Neil, from the dark curl of his hair that brushes his neck with every step he takes and makes Andrew feel like he’s standing in an inferno instead of an Exy store, and instead looks at the walls that are lined with racquets. “Alas. Oh, look.” 

There is a register to the left of the stairwell and the woman standing there is busy with threading the net of a raquet, but she looks up when she hears them and chirps up a greeting and the usual _“Can I help you?”_ that Andrew waves off quickly. The goalkeeper’s section comes first and Andrew doesn’t look at the racquets because he has no interest in them, but he does reach out to let his fingertips brush along the smooth, cool material of them as they pass them. 

The racquets are arranged from heaviest to lightest, with the heavy racquets right after the goalkeepers’ section and there are fifteen choices for Neil hanging from hooks but considering Neil’s height, which is infuriatingly taller than Andrew is, Neil is stuck with the shortest racquets that are available. 

He picks up one racquet to get a feel of it before he puts it back and repeats the process with another one. Andrew lets his gaze wander to the goalkeepers’ racquets, to their colorful sticks and the difference in the thickness of the nets as Neil goes through all racquets until a sigh reaches Andrew’s ears. 

“They don’t feel right.” 

“A tear for your discomfort,” Andrew says. Exy doesn’t interest him, it never really has, and neither do the choices of the gear from everyone else. 

“And you said I have no team spirit,” Neil mutters to himself, twirling one of the racquets, and Andrew snaps his gaze away from the long fingers holding it to grin at Neil. 

He shrugs. “Never claimed I did either. You’re the fool who gave him your game.” Andrew still doesn’t know the full story of that but he doesn’t feel like prying it out of Neil or Kevin anytime soon and is content to sit back and watch, to try and figure out this puzzle and the missing pieces himself, to learn the language of this book with pages that seem without logic. “Reap what you sow or burn the field down, the choice is yours. Be smarter next time, would you?” 

Neil puts down the racquet at that and looks over at Andrew. “I’m not the only one.” There’s music blaring from the speakers; it’s a song Andrew hasn’t heard before, with bells in the background and a deep voice mumbling lyrics, but he knows it will stay in his head for the rest of the day. “He told me why he stayed. He told me what he promised you. So how are you any different from me if you’re in it for Exy, too?” 

Oh, Andrew has absolutely no idea what exactly Kevin had told Neil about the promise of theirs, but Andrew knows Neil must have misunderstood something along the way. Their promise is a give and take, like any other promise that hangs around his wrists like handcuffs. Protection for something to build his life around once he’s sober. A fair trade in every single way, even if Andrew knows it’ll be impossible for Kevin to truly hold his end of the deal, even if he wants to. 

“Oh, Neil, it’s like this.” Andrew leans forward into Neil’s space as if he’s about to convey a secret and uses his hand to gesture between them once. “He asks and you give—okay, okay, okay. He asks—” demands and orders, Andrew doesn’t say “—and I refuse, absolutely not.” And Kevin doesn’t take a ‘no’ lightly; he pushes and pushes and pushes against a wall made out of steel that won’t give, no matter how hard he tries. “I’m waiting for him to give up. He has to walk away eventually.” 

“Do you really want him to?” Neil asks and cocks his head to the side. “Haven’t enough people walked away from you already because of your condition?” 

Oh, if Neil actually thinks Andrew’s _condition_ is what makes people walk away then he’s a bigger idiot than Andrew’s convinced he is. 

“He can’t wait for you to be sober again. How many people can you say that about?” 

The number of people looking forward to Andrew’s sobriety can be shown on one hand; apart from Kevin, Renee and Bee look forward to it, but Neil doesn’t seem to know this. He also doesn’t seem to know that the reason for Kevin’s excitement is so different from theirs, colored red instead of green, that it shouldn’t even count to begin with, really. 

“It is very self-serving excitement,” Andrew says and it’s the truth; Kevin hopes and hopes and hopes that Andrew will suddenly start caring for Exy once his drug induced happy mood is washed out of him and gone for good, as if the blank canvas of Andrew’s emotional state without the drugs will suddenly be filled with vibrant orange, of all colors. It’s hideous. “He wants something. He stands to gain, or so he thinks.” 

Neil looks away for a second and swallows, his Adam’s apple jumps as he does so and Andrew narrows his eyes at himself, at the warm feeling pulling low in his stomach. “So what happens if he’s right?” Neil asks then and meets his gaze again. “What happens if you wake up and realize Exy is exciting and worth your time? Will you lie just so you can keep refusing him, or will you give in and admit he’s won?” 

It’s a strange question, Andrew thinks. It’s something a child would ask, full of misplaced hope and it’s even stranger coming from someone like Neil. It makes amusement bubble up inside of Andrew, it drowns out the spark of attraction for all but a second and is enough to make Andrew laugh. “I never took you for a dreamer. You are so strange sometimes.” 

“I saw the way you played against Edgar Allan,” Neil says instead of acknowledging what Andrew said. “For a moment it looked like it meant something to you.” 

“Oh, Neil,” Andrew says, again. It isn’t like he’s entirely wrong, but he doesn’t have it right either. 

The game meant something, yes, but it meant showing the Ravens, and especially Riko, that Kevin isn’t their lap dog anymore and following different rules, even if it takes time to teach an old dog new tricks. It meant letting out the hot, uncontrollable anger inside of Andrew that had sparked on the day of Kathy Ferdinand’s show and continued to grow and grow until it was almost impossible to ignore. 

Neil frowns at him. “That’s not an answer.” 

No, Andrew supposes it wasn’t. “That wasn’t a question, it was a misguided accusation.” 

“Here’s a real question,” Neil says and Andrew blinks, waits, and then he asks, “how have you survived this long when you’re so violently self-destructive?” 

That is, of all the things Neil could ask, the last thing Andrew is expecting and something he hasn’t seen coming — he notices that that is the case more than often with Neil. He cocks his head to the side in a silent question, curious what Neil will say next even if Andrew knows what he means. The focus is always on Andrew and what a danger he is when people start talking about his upcoming sobriety, or about his trial, and how his court mandated drugs saved everyone from Andrew. 

The thing that no one knows, that Andrew wouldn't know how to explain even if he felt like it and found the words for it, is that this — putting himself last and sucking in the bursts of sudden anger where they can evaporate with the help of his drugs or get swallowed by the darkness sharpening her claws inside of him — is a habit Andrew cannot shake. 

It’s something he has been told to do again and again and again; something that had been stitched into his being, with words sharp enough to slip through and under the layers of his skin and bury deep.

“You told me Cass would never hurt you,” Neil says and Andrew nods against the sudden scent in his nose. Roses and sunshine. _Cass_. “And that she would have given you a good education, but you sabotaged your adoption.” Because a letter had arrived at their house, addressed to him and signed by someone claiming to be his identical twin brother. 

“Officer Higgins came all the way here from the west coast to fix something from your past but you won’t help him.” Because Higgins wouldn’t have believed Andrew even if Andrew had slapped him in the face with the truth. 

“You left juvie and killed Aaron’s mother to protect him, but instead of fixing your relationship with him, you keep him on a leash.” Because they made a promise to each other and Aaron didn’t keep it, because Aaron broke it like everyone else before did, and because the least Andrew can do is break the cycle and actually keep his word. 

“You don’t want Nicky’s parents to hurt him, but you won’t let him into your family either. Kevin promised to invest in you but you won’t even try,” Neil says and Andrew lets his smile grow; he knows there is nothing worth trying for, there won’t be anything worth actually trying for. “So what is it? Are you afraid of your own happiness or do you actually like being miserable all the time?” 

And that—that is a new one, really, because Andrew isn’t miserable at all. It’s quite the opposite, actually, with amusement swirling inside of him and mixing with the attraction burning through his being, with the colorful kaleidoscope Andrew looks through every day. 

“Neil, look,” Andrew says and points at his own face. Lets his smile grow a little as he does. “Do I look miserable?” 

Neil gets that look again, the same one he had when they were at Eden’s Twilight the last time. The one Neil had been wearing when he had tried to figure out Andrew and Renee’s relationship that shouldn’t even matter to someone like him, who doesn’t swing, as much as it seems to do. 

“You look drugged within an inch of your life,” Neil says, which, Andrew knows, is the truth, “and when you’re not medicated, you’re drinking and dusting. When they finally take your medicine away, who are you going to hurt, really?” 

That, Andrew finds, is a question he doesn’t like but it still pulls a laugh out of him. He throws words Neil had said to him a few weeks ago in the locker room, empty enough that they had echoed back from the metal stalls around them, at him when he says, “I’m remembering why I don’t like you.” 

“I’m surprised you forgot,” Neil says, almost identical to what Andrew had said and something, a quiet voice, inside of Andrew whispers the word interesting again and again. 

“I didn’t,” Andrew admits. “I just got distracted for a moment there.” With this attraction that keeps growing and growing and dancing out of Andrew’s reach when he tries to grab for it. “I told her it was a mistake to let you stay, but she didn’t believe me. Now look. Oh, for once I don’t even want to bother with the ‘I told you so’.” He frowns at Neil, all fake disappointment. “You ruin all my fun.” 

It’s not entirely the truth, but it’s also nothing Neil needs to know. Not now, or ever if Andrew has any say in it. 

Neil mirrors his frown, but instead of disappointment it’s filled with confusion. “Renee?” 

While Andrew knows that Neil’s dislike for Renee has shrunk in size, he also knows that his distrust for Bee is bigger than it could ever be with Renee, and so he lets the amusement he feels show when he smiles and says, “Bee.” 

“What did you tell her about me?” Neil asks, all wide eyed and color draining from his face as if Andrew actually spills all of the little secrets Neil has told him at the first chance he gets. 

It makes his smile grow wider. “Doctor-patient confidentiality, Neil! But don’t make such a scary face,” Andrew says and points at his own face as he intimidates Neil before his smile ruins the show. “I didn’t tell her your sad little story, we just talked about you. Critical difference, yes?” He waits a second, listens to the new song playing from the speakers and then continues, “I told her you’re more trouble than you’re worth. She was looking forward to meeting you, but she won’t tell me what she thinks of you. But I know she likes you; Bee has a thing for lost causes.” 

That is why Andrew and Bee get along so well, after all. 

“I am not a lost cause,” Neil says a second later and actually sounds like he means it, which is incredibly ridiculous. He has been on the run for most of his life, a binder full of Riko and Kevin articles and information about them, clothes that make him look three years younger than he is sometimes and a list of issues almost as long as Andrew’s. 

He’s definitely a lost cause, and that was a lie and Andrew hates liars, so he moves and puts his hand over Neil’s mouth to shut him up. The heat from his lips burns Andrew’s palm, makes him feel like someone dropped the match dangling above the gasoline poured everywhere inside of him at all times to create a fire burning bright enough to rival the sun.

“Liar,” Andrew says. “But that’s what makes you so interesting. It’s also what makes you so dangerous.” 

He had talked about this with Bee, about how much this attraction running along his skin like little sparks of electricity starts to feel less like lust, like what Andrew had thought it was, and more like claws, like poison crawling under his skin. 

But he can’t tell Neil this, he won’t tell Neil this, and shutting Neil up to stop him from pressing the conversation even more, to stop his own mouth from getting away from him is the perfect way to avoid this as long as he still can. 

“I should know better by now,” Andrew says, more to himself than to Neil. He knows better than to let Neil in, he knows better than to let someone else in and let them be the death of him when it had almost killed him with the last person he had let in. With Cass. “Maybe I’m not as smart as I thought I was. Should I be disappointed or amused?” 

Andrew can see it then, past the reflection of his own smile looking back at him from Neil’s eyes. He can see the gears starting to turn in Neil’s head as he starts to connect dots, to find answers that make sense to him, and his fingers start to itch for the familiar weight of a cigarette between them as the need to stop this conversation grows bigger inside of him. 

He pulls his hand back and turns around without looking back. “I’ll find Kevin,” he says and waves with the same hand that feels like it’s on fire from touching Neil. “He’s too slow.” 

He takes one step, then two at a time and then three. His thoughts run wild as he reaches the second step, and his skin still feels as if it’s burning from the inside out by the time Andrew passes directly between Kevin and the manager of the store to send him upstairs. The chilly air from outside slips under his clothes and brushes his heated skin as he pulls out his cigarettes, lights one and takes his first drag. 

This, Andrew thinks as he tilts his head back to watch the dark clouds decorating the horizon and looking like soft wool, is far too dangerous. The feeling nestling between the protective carve of his ribcage, making itself home and shining brighter than the moon does on a dark, starless night. 

The more time he spends thinking about it, the more distracting it is and it can’t pull more of Andrew’s attention away from where it’s supposed to be, and from where it has been anchored for a long time. It’s already getting out of hand, and Andrew knows that he’s too late to stop it, but he also knows that it will be nothing but a fleeting memory once the constant curl of his lips disappears with his medications. 

By the time the others come back out of Exites and to the car, Andrew is smoking his third cigarette but he doesn’t finish it as Nicky unlocks the car and throws it onto the ground. 

Neil takes the racquet he’s holding with him into the backseat and Andrew leans forward after it’s on the ground to knot his fingers through the strings of the net and tugs a few times before he grows bored of it. 

During the short drive to the Hemmick’s house, Andrew busies himself by playing with the window controls (he presses them down and waits until his window is rolled all the way down and blows cold wind inside before he removes his finger, the button snaps back and the window rolls up again) to the sound of Nicky peppering Kevin with questions about the racquet on the floor. 

The Hemmicks live in a two-story home in the suburbs of southern Columbia, and, from the outside, their house looks so perfect that Andrew almost thinks it’s to hide how ugly the people living inside are. The lawn is neatly trimmed and vibrant green even now, when the weather begins to turn cold and grey. The cars in the driveway look nice and clean, a little too nice and clean in Andrew’s opinion, and the house is a pale blue with dark shutters. It looks like an ordinary middle-class home, and seeing it again pulls everything Andrew was ready to say directly from his tongue. 

That is, until Nicky drums his fingers on the steering wheel as if he’s suddenly the one with too much energy — which, considering the situation, might not be too off. “Maybe this was a mistake.” 

“Oh, now he says it,” Andrew says and gets out of the car before Nicky turns it around to drive away again. Not that Andrew would have anything against it, but they’re already here and Andrew is too curious to see the other shoe drop to go now. “Too late.” 

Neil puts his racquet aside when he gets out, but Andrew takes another glance at the expensive looking cars a few feet away from then and reaches past him to pick up the stick as Neil takes a step to the side. He twirls it once to judge the weight of it, which isn’t heavier than his own racquet is, and then props it against his shoulder as he starts for one of the cars. 

“Andrew,” Nicky says from somewhere behind him, and Andrew lets his lips twitch up into a smile. “What are you doing?” 

“He’s got a really shiny car for a minister,” Andrew says and nods at the car closest to him. It has a spotless paint job, silver that shimmers in the faint shine of the sun from behind the thick blanket of clouds on the horizon, and when Andrew takes another step he can see that there’s leather seats inside. It looks extremely expensive and nice; way too nice for someone like Luther, in his honest opinion. “I’m going to humble it.” 

He can already imagine it, the vibrations that will run up the material of the stick over his shoulder when it makes contact with the car. The crunch of the expensive looking metal, the crack of the windows as they splinter and then shatter. 

But before he can get any closer, there’s the sound of feet slapping on the floor and then Nicky is before him, with a look of pure horror on his face that does nothing to stop Andrew from being even more amused, and he lets his cousin take the racquet from him. He laughs once his hands are empty and shoos Nicky away to make him lead the way, which he does after another second but not without handing the racquet back to Neil. 

Neil and Kevin stay somewhere behind Andrew as they cross the yard, and they stop with some distance from where Andrew is standing on the walkway with his brother at his side. 

It takes almost two full minutes for Nicky to gather himself on the porch and Andrew is tapping the front of his shoe against the ground by the time Nicky rings the doorbell. As soon as the sound of it, grating and harsher than the tone Kevin has set as his alarm, rings loud enough through the air that they can all hear it from outside, Nicky retreats to the edge of the porch to wait and Andrew looks over his shoulder, looks at Kevin and Neil standing side by side, and flashes Neil a grin. 

Neil just shakes his head back at him and it’s enough to make Andrew grin wider as the door gets answered by a woman taller than Andrew and Aaron, even taller than Neil, but shorter than her own son and Kevin. 

The resemblance between Maria Hemmick and his cousin is very hard to miss, with Nicky having inherited his mother’s eyes and the curve to his mouth. But there’s a smile on Maria’s face, and it’s small and polite even if it’s pinched, and it’s not one Andrew has ever seen on his cousin. He would remember if Nicky had ever smiled like this, after all. 

Maria doesn’t even make the effort to look at the rest of them, but frowns up at Nicky. “Why did you ring the doorbell?” she asks then, instead of greeting her own son (not that Andrew would have expected anything else from someone like her) and as if it’s not obvious. 

“This isn’t my house anymore,” Nicky says, almost a reminder. As if Maria could’ve, somehow, possibly forgotten about it. 

She purses her lips at that and steps aside to let them inside without an argument, not that Maria Hemmick had ever been one to argue anything apart from her son’s sexuality. 

Andrew takes the second Maria wastes with staring at the door after it closes behind them with a quiet click to look around the spacious and tidy foyer, to look at the clean paint job on the walls, at the pale vase on a small table to the left (Andrew would bet actual money on how good it would look if he accidentally kicked it from the table and onto the clean, bright tiles on the floor) and the frames on the walls from which only one is filled with an actual picture instead of horrendous paintings.

“You must be Kevin and Neil,” Maria says when she turns around again and nods at the strikers in greeting, not even a hint of recognition in her stare. “I’m Maria.” 

Kevin puts on another one of his public-friendly and nauseating smiles, the same one he had been wearing in Exites not even a full hour ago, and says, “It’s nice to meet you.” 

Maria doesn’t acknowledge that and instead looks to the twins, and then her gaze completely slips past Aaron and focuses on Andrew. 

It’s not too surprising, really. Especially considering that Andrew is still smiling, too amused and drugged up to find this whole charade anything but funny, and Aaron’s blank face. 

But Andrew knows that Luther and Maria should both know about this, about the sparks and fog and color in Andrew’s head, and the fact that Maria apparently forgot is enough to make Andrew smile wider. 

“Aaron,” she says to Andrew and then actually smiles at him, “it’s been a long time.” 

A handful of things are instantly on the tip of Andrew’s tongue, from nice to mocking to downright rude (because Andrew can have a little fun with this, no?), and ready to be fired a second later,but before he can even decide on one of them, his dear brother ruins his fun and answers, “Aaron.” 

There is a hint of uncertainty in Maria’s eyes as she looks away from Andrew’s smile, looks at Aaron’s guarded expression and then back to Andrew again as if she expects them to clap and go ‘haha, just kidding! silly of us.’. “Oh, yes, of course.” 

Nicky sighs from where he’s standing on Andrew’s left. “Andrew’s been on medication for almost three years now, Mom.” 

It doesn’t cost Andrew any effort at all to aim his brightest, most unfriendly smile the drugs in his system allow him at Maria. “Hello, Maria. How very, very nice to see you again, I’m sure,” he says and doesn’t mean it. “Very interesting, you letting us back in your house again and all. I thought you were going to file a restraining order against me.” It’s true, and one of the last words she had said to Andrew before now. He’s only a little curious to find out why she decided against it. “What happened, did you lose your nerve?” 

“Andrew,” Nicky says at the same time his mother’s cheeks flush. 

“You can leave your coats here,” Maria says and points to her right, to the closet with a dozed-odd spare hangers and then watches them as they follow without a complaint, as if she’s scared they’re going to destroy anything. Not that Andrew would do that, of course. She beckons them to follow with a curt, “Right this way.” 

“Can’t you even tell your own nephews—” Nicky starts to say as they walk behind her down the hallway, and the rest of his question gets lost and forgotten as they step into the kitchen and Nicky’s father comes into view. 

Luther Hemmick looks the same as he did when Andrew had seen him last; tall, rake-thin with a small face and almost all of the hair that had once surely been on his hair missing, which is something he makes up for with a truly awful pepper beard that’s trimmed short and neat. 

Maybe some of the wrinkles all over his face are new, none of them as prominent as the ones on his forehead from the frowning Andrew knows he does all the time. 

And it makes something dark and heavy start to roll in his stomach as he sees the tense set to his uncle's shoulders from across the room; heavy enough that it almost forces its way through the heavy fog inside of Andrew’s head. 

Maria immediately abandons the conversation as quickly as she can, and in the exact same way she had always done, in the exact same way Andrew remembers, and makes herself busy as she checks on the dinner at the stove. 

In the meantime, Luther inspects his guest; he considers Neil and Kevin longer than his wife had, but he doesn’t linger on them. No, his eyes wander to Aaron and Andrew has the sudden and ridiculous urge to step in front of him before Luther meets his gaze and Andrew bares his teeth in an imitation of a smile. 

He grows bored of the little staring contest Luther is apparently searching for, suspicion as easy to read in his eyes as it had been after his sister’s death, and looks around the room. Looks at the small crosses and biblical quotes hanging from the walls that couldn’t be more of a slap to Nicky’s face in a reminder of his parents' rejection. Looks at the kitchen that has always seemed like it jumped directly out of a catalogue and into their house. 

There’s a square table with only two chairs on it, and Andrew knows his dear relatives spend most of their time eating there. The back door is open and the screen door is closed, but Andrew can see the deck through it; there’s a larger table and set to accommodate all of them. 

“Nicky,” Luther says, his voice like nails on a chalkboard to Andrew’s ears, when he’s done staring at the side of Andrew’s face. “Aaron, Andrew.” 

Nicky doesn’t say anything to his father, not that it’s of any surprise to Andrew, really, but Aaron says, “Hey, Uncle Luther.” 

Luther’s face does something then, and then he smiles faintly. He looks back to where Neil and Kevin are standing and says, as if it isn’t completely obvious by now, “I am Nicky’s father. You may call me Luther. Welcome to my home.” 

“Thank you for having us,” Kevin says. 

“You can set that down in here,” Luther says to Neil and sends to racquet Neil is still holding a long look. He waits until Neil props it against the wall and then motions at the back door. “Please get comfortable. Dinner will only be another minute.” 

The back porch is enclosed with half walls and a thin mesh that lets some of the heat from the lamps set at every corner escape but also keeps most of the November breeze out; strangely, it’s more comfortable outside of the house than it is inside, but Andrew thinks even the court would be more comfortable. He doesn’t say this, of course. Neither Kevin nor Neil need to get any ideas. 

The long table has eight seats, with three to each side and a seat at either end. There are lacy handkerchiefs at the both ends, which marks those as the Hemmick’s seats with their guests spread out between them. It’s not too dumb, Andrew thinks as Nicky takes a middle seat on one side with a chair between himself and either of his parents with Aaron on his right, because from where he’s sitting — opposite of Nicky and stuck between Neil and Kevin — it’ll be more than a little work to manage an accidental stabbing. 

It takes Luther and Maria more trips to bring out all the food; three long trips because no one in Andrew’s group seems to care to help. And as soon as they’re seated, they both bow their heads without waiting to see if their guests do the same and Andrew lets his lips twitch up a little bit more as Luther begins to pray. He hooks an arm around the back of his chair and picks up the cool fork next to his plate to drum it against the tabletop in the tune of the song that had been playing in Exites earlier. 

When he’s finished, Luther straightens again and begins serving food from the closest platter which the others take as a cue. Andrew puts as much food on his plate as possible, more than he thinks he can actually eat but enough that it will satisfy his body and system until he has to take his next dose again. 

“Are you religious?” Luther asks Neil as Neil patiently waits for Andrew to finish and Andrew glances over at him, notices the way he sits completely straight in his chair and doesn’t look back at Luther. 

“No.” 

Luther waits then, waits a minute as if he expects Neil to elaborate and then frowns in a way that makes his forehead wrinkle even more than it already is. “Why not.” 

“I’d rather not get into it,” Neil says. “I don’t want to start a fight.” 

“That’s a first,” Andrew says, because it is, and takes great satisfaction in the loud clatter the spoon he’s been holding makes when it slips down from between his fingers and makes contact with the silver of the plate that holds meat on the table. “You’re usually so opinionated, too.” 

“I don’t see how such a question constitutes as a fight,” Luther says to Neil and Nicky sighs quietly from where he’s sitting. 

“Is that really the question you want to start with, Dad?” Nicky asks before Neil has a chance to open his mouth again. Andrew is only a little disappointed at that. He really, really had been looking forward to Neil using that sharp tongue of his. “You don’t want to ask how we’ve been or how we’re doing at school or how the season is going? We had a game in Florida yesterday. We won, you know.” 

“Congratulations,” Luther says, and doesn’t sound like he means it all. It doesn't come as much of a surprise to Andrew, considering how little he cares about anything at all they do. 

“Yeah,” Nicky says and actually sounds sad more than annoyed, as if he’d been hoping for dear Luther to suddenly change his mind and take interest in what his son or his nephews are up to. “You sound like you mean it.” 

Silence stretches out over them, uncomfortable and extremely amusing to no one but Andrew, but before it has the chance to keep stretching and pulling into something more awkward, Nicky half-heartedly asks, “When did you repaint the kitchen?” 

“Two years ago,” Maria says and pours water, clear and not sparkling, into the glass next to her plate. “The contractor goes to our church. It looks nice, doesn’t it?” She waits until Nicky gives his agreement, which he does with a quiet nod, and then looks to Luther. “So what are you studying, Nicholas?” 

And isn’t that discouraging, or even heartbreaking, how little Maria and Luther seem to know about their own son, even if he’s in his sophomore year? It’s neither discouraging, nor heartbreaking to Andrew, and he remembers what Neil had said to him a few days ago with a slimmer of amusement bubbling up inside of him. 

That this has the chance to be what makes Nicky walk away without looking back, and the more both Luther and Maria open their mouths and talk, the more likely it seems to Andrew that this is going to happen. 

“Marketing,” Nicky says quietly and looks down at his hands. “Erik’s cousin works for a PR firm in Stuttgart,” he adds and Andrew can almost hear the coffin slamming shut at the look that appears on Maria’s face as she sets her glass back down. “She thinks she can get me in after graduation if I make the right grades.” 

“You’re going back to Germany?” Maria asks, as if she had expected anything but that, as if she had expected Nicky not to go back to the place that brought him back onto his feet and gave him something to live for. 

Nicky’s jaw tightens as he looks up from his hands and there’s suddenly something in his eyes, something Andrew has seen before from other people, but never from his cousin. Something that makes him smile around the fork in his mouth and think, _oh hello_. “Yes. Erik’s career is there. I wouldn’t ask him to leave it just for me, and I wouldn’t want him to, anyway. I loved living in Germany. It’s an amazing place.” The look is still there but it pales when he says, “You should visit us sometime.” 

“Us,” Maria says faintly and blinks a few times. “You’re still…” 

There are a lot of ways Maria could’ve ended that sentence — you’re still seeing a man? You’re still kissing a man? You’re still condemning yourself to eternal hellfire by being with a man instead of a woman like God and whatever had intended? — and Andrew knows that he wouldn’t have liked one of those. 

“Yes, we’re still together,” Nicky says and puts his cutlery down on the table. “I came back to take care of Andrew and Aaron, not because things went sour with Erik. I love him, okay?” He pauses, only for a second. “I always have and I always will. When are you going to get that?” 

“When will you accept that it is wrong?” Luther asks from Andrew’s left and Andrew starts tapping his fork against the porcelain of the white plate in front of him. “Homosexuality is—” 

Oh, Andrew really, really doesn’t like where Luther is going with this. No, there’s something hot uncurling in his stomach, hot enough to push past the fog and the thoughts erratically bouncing around in his head, and Andrew finds that he’s not a fan of this at all. So he says, only once, “Luther.” And it’s magically enough to shut his dear uncle up. 

“I love him,” Nicky says again and looks at Luther. Then at Maria. They both stay silent and Andrew cheerfully makes his fork hit the plate faster. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Why can’t you be happy for us? Why can’t you give him a chance?” 

“We cannot condone sin,” Maria says. 

Nicky completely lets go of his cutlery and puts his hands on the table, palms touching the napkins spread out around it. “You don’t have to love the sin,” he says, and it’s almost as if he’s grasping for straws now, as if he’s trying to find one reason not to leave without looking back, as if he’s holding onto a rope that keeps getting thinner and thinner until it rips and makes him fall, “but you’re supposed to forgive and love the sinner. Isn’t that what faith is all about?” 

“Things have come to light recently that made us question our current situation. We have committed to repairing this family,” Luther says and Andrew thinks, there it is. 

This has to be the second shoe dropping, the thing hasn’t been able to figure out, the missing piece that he hadn’t seen coming because, really, this is not something he expected to hear. Not now, or ever. 

Luther glances at Maria, who nods back at him. “But we understand it will be a long, uphill path. We brought you down here so we could decide on the first steps together.” 

It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to Andrew. If they can’t even accept their own son for something as simple as his sexuality, if they can’t accept and understand that there isn’t anything wrong with Nicky, how are they planning to repair this trainwreck of a family? And how blind are those two, really, to think that there is anything left to repair, that there is still something not broken, that there are still bridges that haven’t been burned down yet? 

“Enlighten us,” Andrew says and lets his fork fall onto his plate with a loud clatter as he leans forward to get a better look at his uncle. “If the first step isn’t tolerance, where does a pair of bigots begin in fixing a mess like this?” 

Luther meets Andrew’s stare and looks oddly calm and put together as he says, “With reparations of his past mistakes. That’s why you’re here.” 

And that—

—that isn’t the truth. Not at all, actually! 

“Oh, no,” Andrew says and lets the grin on his face grow. “I am only here because Neil whined at me until I agreed to come along.” It isn’t the truth, not completely, because Neil hadn’t whined at Andrew, but Andrew finds that he doesn’t care enough about that little detail to correct himself. “Leave me out of this.” 

Luther frowns and opens his mouth to say something else, and Andrew feels his fingers twitch with the urge to reach for one of the knives pressed to his skin under his armbands, but then Maria holds up a hand as if they’re a horde of wild animals. “Let’s eat. This kind of conversation is too difficult on a half empty stomach. We’ll eat more and try again,” she says and Andrew doesn’t think that there will be more trying of that tonight if he has any say in it, “and then reward our efforts with dessert. There is pie in the oven. Apple, Nicholas,” she adds with a glance at Nicky. “It used to be your favorite.” 

It’s a meager peace offering, and a dumb one in Andrew’s opinion, especially considering the harsh words it had interrupted, but Nicky just nods and picks up his cutlery again. 

Another silence stretches over the table, uncomfortable — for everyone but Andrew, that is, because he spends his time happily slamming his knife against the table — but uncomfortable nonetheless until Aaron, who had been silent until now, breaks it. Andrew stops listening then as the thoughts in his head begin to spin faster and faster. 

He honestly doesn’t believe what Luther and Maria have said, that this is all some kind of peace offering and a hope for a better future. 

No, he doesn’t believe this one bit and this means that there’s probably something else, something they aren’t saying, that is the reason for this. For this dinner, for the tolerance of Andrew’s rude remarks and overall behavior when there had never been any of that before. And the question is why they aren’t saying it, why they chose to go with something like family reparations as the reason instead of spitting the actual reason out right away? 

Andrew turns and twists the thoughts inside of his head, pulls and pushes them this way and that, and his fingers start to itch for a cigarette before he can come close to something that could answer this. He gets up towards the end of dinner, still enough on his plate to feed someone else, and goes inside with the intent of walking out front to smoke. But he only makes it to the kitchen, which is where the quiet but determined footsteps following him get too loud to ignore. 

“Andrew,” Luther says behind him and Andrew pulls out his pack of cigarettes before he turns. 

“Oh, Luther! Hello there,” he says and smiles; smiles against the sudden burst of anger buried deep inside of him. “Fancy meeting you here, really, and I so very hate to say this, but I actually have an appointment—” he makes a show of looking down at a wristwatch he’s not wearing and then snips his fingers “—right about now! Don’t want to come late to that, you see. And you understand, don’t you? I knew you would!” 

His voice gets louder at the end, half because of his meds and half because of the ugly, ugly feeling deep inside of him and he makes to walk out of the kitchen, but then Luther steps in front of him. 

“Andrew,” Luther says again, and Andrew thinks people should really stop saying his name as much as they do because it almost makes him think they assume he’s going to forget it anytime soon. “I did mean what I said before dinner, there have been mistakes—” 

“Have there?” Andrew interrupts before Luther has the chance to finish whatever he was going to say because he actually doesn’t care about it, at all. “Oh, right. There have been some mistakes, no?” He snips again, his smile growing as his voice gets louder. “Ah, but you call them misunderstandings, no?” 

Luther swallows once. “Johnnie Walker,” he says and it’s such a wild change of topic — even to Andrew — that Andrew stops, and it’s just for a heartbeat but it’s long enough for Luther to continue. “I have a bottle upstairs, I purchased it with the intention of giving it to you as a peace offering.” 

That is, honestly, the dumbest thing Andrew has heard the whole day, but there’s suddenly a burn at the back of his throat and it’s stronger than the urge for a cigarette. 

Andrew narrows his eyes, though, and tilts his head to the side. “A peace offering? Oh, Luther. My dear uncle. You will drown one day without seeing it coming.” He takes a step and then looks at Luther again. “Which room did you say it was in again? And you better not be lying to me before I push your head under myself.” 

“The last room on the left,” Luther says and moves out of the way as Andrew makes his way to the stairs. “It’s on the table.” As Andrew steps onto the first stair, he quietly adds, “I apologize.” 

Andrew doesn’t believe in regrets. He had once, a long, long time ago, but he doesn’t anymore, his skin raw where it has been rubbed out of him, and he knows that he won’t believe in it ever again. 

But Luther’s words have him still, if only for half a breath, because they’re not at all what Andrew had been expecting. Because Andrew knows Luther can’t possibly mean that, can’t possibly suddenly understand and see what he’d been too blind to see years ago. 

“Fuck you,” Andrew says, his smile growing as Luther’s eyes widen. “You don’t even know what that is for, do you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer and doesn’t look back at his uncle as he quickly goes up into the second floor, the stairs creaking under his weight. 

The second floor of the house doesn’t look much different than the first; there are still awful paintings framed with metal that has been painted gold decorating the wall, there are still no family pictures and a vase with art of angels on them here and there. 

A soft, disgustingly beige colored carpet softens the sound of Andrew’s steps as he turns with his eyes on the room Luther had mentioned. He reaches out and lets his fingers brush the wall to accidentally push a small plant over and then puts his hand onto the cool handle of the door and turns it to push the door open. 

Some monsters live inside of Andrew’s mind, they live in the shadows the dazzling brightness of his medication throws. They rear their ugl heads sometimes and most of them are faceless but undeniably shaped like words Andrew has banned from his present, from his life. Words that he cannot ban from his mind, from his memory that doesn’t forget and stores anything and everything like a chip with too much storage; a camera always running with no one behind it to aim at what or who to film and capture forever. 

**He takes one step into the room** , turns his head to look for the alcohol Luther had mentioned and then, all of a sudden, there is pain. It starts from the back of his head, and spreads over it like wildfire and then there’s a ringing in his ears as something wet and cool runs down the side of his face. It smells strong and sharp and it’s familiar but Andrew can’t put his finger on it because his vision becomes dizzy, which is strange because he can’t for the life of him remember this being one of the side effects of his medication. 

His ears ring and there’s something falling to the carpet in front of him; something small and colorless and something that twinkles and sparkles in the light coming in from the hallway. 

Before Andrew has the chance to try and focus on it (because, really, when did it start to snow?), there is something, something hot and something that makes his stomach roll with nausea in a way that only the touch of someone else can. 

It has him swinging out his arms in an instant and he feels them making contact with something, he feels how his nails break someone’s skin and there’s a grunt of pain, too close to familiar, and Andrew has a moment to think, shock freezing his body when his drugs scream nothing but for him to move, that this is all starting to make horrible sense now before he turns. 

Most of the monsters are faceless and shaped like words, yes, but some of them carry the faces of people. They resemble monsters wearing human faces in reality, faces Andrew will never forget even if he wants to, and they scream and pull at his mind in a try to jump out. 

There is one of them now, maybe one of the worst ones, looking back at him in this small room with blood running down the side of his face and Andrew stumbles back a step he doesn’t remember taking, dizziness mixing with the sudden and unmistakable feeling of nausea inside of him and creating a very, very dangerous cocktail. 

The movie inside of him continues to play, and then there’s suddenly something soft underneath him and weight at the back of his neck as he burns and burns and burns everywhere. He feels like he’s seven again as something heavy and warm covers him and twists around his wrist in a grip like iron. And then he’s eight again, and nine, and ten, and eleven and twelve with his fingers holding on to something that he can’t make out. 

Andrew’s head pounds in the rhythm of his heart slamming against the protective carve of his ribcage and something else slams and there’s amusement, bright and pushing past the horror and the shock and nausea and then he’s laughing because, really, this is the last thing Andrew would’ve expected and he can’t believe he didn’t spare one second thinking about it. About being grabbed and thrown into the limbo that seems to be his life, events happening and happening again and again and again in the tragic, repetitive form of a carouse at e carnival. 

There’s sudden cold then, but Andrew pays it no mind because he’s still laughing and he cannot seem to stop until the cloud he lays on dips somewhere to his right and then he can hear his own name but it’s not the monster saying it. No, no, no, no, this is completely different and enough to have Andrew stop when he runs out of air. 

**He notices it then, the absolute silence** inside of the room and that’s odd, it doesn’t make sense and it’s a different route from his memories. It’s a road he’s not been on before. 

“Got quiet all of a sudden,” Andrew says, not without surprise because this is oh so _odd_. His fingers weaken from what he’s been holding on and he flexes them to get rid of the feeling of needles stabbing them. He pushes his hands down then, against the cloud that he realizes is a mattress and pushes himself up, manages halfway before there’s pain flaring up and Andrew doesn’t like it, he hates it, he hates it so much that he laughs again. “Oh, oh, that’s unpleasant. I am not a fan of this at all.” 

There is something covering him up to his shoulders and when Andrew manages to get himself upright, he sees that it’s a sheet and it’s bloody and dark and Neil is here, which is even weirder, and wrapping it tighter around Andrew. 

Neil’s eyes, dark dark and dark and wrong for some reason, go up to Andrew’s temple which is exactly the place all of this pain comes from. 

“I think I’m concussed,” Andrew tells Neil. The room spins around them, fast and faster and Andrew wonders how they have managed not to fly off the bed when everything keeps moving. “Either that or this is a new side effect of my medication the doctors forgot to warn me about.” Nausea crawls up the back of his throat again and Andrew takes a second to swallow. “If I throw up on you, it is only half intentional.” 

A strangled noise reaches his ears then, and he doesn't see Neil move his lips to speak but he recognizes the voice saying his name, quiet and broken, in an instant. 

And it’s his brother that he sees looking back at him when he turns his head, and that can’t be because the monster is here, somewhere, and they have to stay away from each other, Andrew has to make sure Aaron is alright and then make him leave, make him—

—he pulls one of his arms from under the sheet covering and curls his fingers in a wordless demand. 

Aaron comes closer and climbs onto the bed with him and Neil, and it dips under his weight, and then he reaches for Andrew and Andrew cannot, he doesn’t want to — but neither does his stomach because another wave of nausea rolls over him and it has him leaning forward to choke, to empty his stomach onto the floor. 

“Andrew,” Aaron says, again and then again, his hand on Andrew’s shoulder and squeezing as if he thinks Andrew will just slip away if he holds any lighter. “Andrew, I didn’t—he—”

Andrew spits a couple of times when he’s done in an attempt to get rid of the sour taste in his mouth and gasps for breath. “Quiet, quiet. Quiet. Look at me,” he says, but it takes him a little until he can sit up again (and everything hurts and hurts and burns) and look at his brother. Andrew reaches out and presses a hand to Aaron’s shirt, because there’s something staining it and it’s wet and red and it’s everywhere, even on Andrew, and—

“It’s everywhere. What did he do?” 

“It’s not mine,” Aaron says and that’s good, that’s good, but then it means that it belongs to someone else and Andrew doesn’t have the time to try and make his head stop spinning so that he can think before Aaron continues. “It’s not mine, it’s—Andrew, he—”

There’s a look in Aaron’s eyes, he notices as their eyes are locked onto each other, one that seems too familiar to come from Aaron. Because it’s like looking into a mirror now, looking at the darkness in Aaron’s eyes that he knows as good as the one raging inside of himself. 

They’re a set now, more so in this moment than they have ever been before, right down to their rotten cores that feed the darkness and let it rage. 

_Hello, dear brother_ , Andrew thinks but then his forehead pulses with another wave of pain and he reaches out to touch Aaron’s temple, to search if they are identical in this way too and Aaron has an identical injury there. “Did he touch you?” 

“What did he—” 

Andrew knots his fingers in Aaron’s hair and yanks once to shut him up. “Answer me,” he says, because he needs to hear it, because this couldn’t have happened, not when Andrew had made a promise to himself long before they made theirs to each other. “I said, did he touch you?” 

“No,” Aaron says and Andrew loosens his grip. 

It comes back to him then, the missing piece of the whole picture that makes all of this, with every little disgusting detail make more sense than Andrew wants it to. 

What should’ve been completely clear from the beginning is that Luther and Maria never would’ve reached out on their own to repair their broken family. It should’ve been clear, and it was dancing right out of Andrew’s reach, that this couldn’t have been something they just decided to fix. 

Because, really, if that had been their goal from the beginning, there wouldn’t have been the demand for Andrew to come along. And Luther let this happen, he let this happen even with the knowledge of what Andrew had told him years ago and probably without even thinking about it, not even for a second. 

“I’m going to kill him,” Andrew says, and he means it. He’s going to kill Luther, one way or another, for doing this, for bringing not only Andrew in the same house as this monster but for also bringing Aaron when Andrew had done nothing but make sure they wouldn’t cross paths as long as he was alive. 

“He’s already dead,” Neil says.

“That explains the silence,” Andrew says, “but that’s not who I meant. Look, we don’t even have to go anywhere.” There’s the sound of the stairs creaking under the weight of more than one person — a sound Andrew has been forced to recognize from very early on — and Andrew tightens his grip on Aaron’s hair again. He doesn’t acknowledge that piece of information Neil had given him. He can’t. Not here and not now. “He’ll come right to us.” 

Nicky walks into the room, followed by Kevin (and there’s Kevin and Andrew takes a second to look at him, at the lack of blood on his body), and then he rushes to the bed with a horrified, “Oh my God.” 

“Don’t,” Neil says from where he’s still holding the sheet and holds out a hand to warn Nicky off. 

His cousin stops close to the bed instead of trying to fit on it as well and reaches out with both of his hands and Andrew doesn’t want this and he tries to tilt back but there’s nausea and dizziness. 

“Andrew, what happened?” Nicky asks and cradles Andrew’s face in his hand. And he does it carefully, as if Andrew is something breakable. As if there’s still anything left to break. “Are you okay? Jesus, there’s so much blood. Are you—” 

“Nicky,” Andrew says when the sound of someone walking closer stops and the hot feeling of anger comes to live inside of him, “I need to talk to your father. You have two seconds to get out of the way.” There’s another noise then, something that doesn’t quite sound human, and it’s coming from the direction of the door. It makes Andrew laugh through the nausea. “One.” 

“Nicky,” Neil says. “Get down.” 

Nicky lets go of Andrew’s face then, takes the uncomfortable warmth of his palms with him, and sinks to his knees beside the bed. 

It gives Andrew an unobstructed view of Luther over his head, and Andrew knows Luther is there, he had known Luther was on his way from the moment the stairs had started creaking, but he feigns surprise anyway.

“Oh, Luther,” Andrew says. Hot is the anger and delight running along his already burning skin, it starts from deep inside of him and travels over his body from the tip of his hair down to his toes. It makes him tighten his grip in Aaron’s hair again. “Oh, good. You made it. Saves me the trouble of going downstairs to find you. Hey, as long as you’re here, do you want to explain what Drake is doing here?” Andrew asks and the word, the name, drops from his tongue like it’s too heavy to hold, and every letter of it burns like a knife on the way up his throat. “I can’t wait to hear it. I hope it’s good.” 

“What in God’s—” Luther starts, voice hoarse, as if he’s actually surprised by this.

“Oh, no,” Andrew says and shakes his head strong enough for another wave of nausea to roll over him. “No. Don’t ask what. You know better. You know better,” he says again and let’s the anger, the fire inside of him, bleed into the words. He tilts forward as far as he can, and then he starts to sway as the dizziness comes back with a rush but Neil catches Andrew’s shoulder before he can fall over. “Looks like I was right after all. Or do you still think this is all a big misunderstanding? Go on,” he tells Luther, “tell me again how I’m too unbalanced to understand normal brotherly affection and love. Tell me this is natural.” 

It makes him smile, the silence coming from Luther, because they both know there is nothing Luther can say, really. Andrew had known this all along, but seeing Luther understand it fills him with vicious glee. 

“Hey, Luther,” he says. “Speaking of misunderstandings, am I remembering this wrong, or didn’t you promise me you would talk to Cass? You told me she wasn’t going to foster any more children after me, but apparently she’s had six more since I left juvie. Six, Luther,” Andrew says again. “I’m no good at math but even I know that six is an awful lot higher than zero. How many do you think were in her house when Drake was home between deployments?” 

“Now you let him into your house—” now Luther let Drake talk him into making Andrew, and more importantly Aaron, come “—You put him under the same roof as your son, as my brother. After everything I did to keep them away from each other?” 

After pushing Aaron away instantly after finding out about him, after going to juvie, after leaving Cass and everything else behind to avoid Aaron meeting this monster. 

He gives Aaron’s hair another fierce tug at that and it causes Aaron to get yanked closer before he lets go. “As soon as I get my balance back I am going to tear you apart, Luther,” Andrew says, he threatens, and he doesn’t care at all that the others all hear it. “This is the only warning you’re going to get.” 

“This has happened before,” Aaron says, apparently having put the pieces together — which, considering all Andrew has just said, shouldn’t have been that hard. He looks at Andrew and Andrew can see it in his peripheral vision, but he doesn’t look away from Luther and the satisfaction he gets from the horror in his face. “This has happened before, and you knew about it,” Aaron then says to Luther. “You knew what he’d done and you brought him here anyway.”

“Is that true?” Nicky asks from the ground. 

Luther opens his mouth and then closes it again, like a fish gasping for air (or, water) and Aaron only lets him try for a few seconds to answer. “Get out of here,” he says, and when Luther remains frozen, actually starts screaming, “Get out of here!” 

He does leave then, turns on his heel and makes his way downstairs again but not without tugging the door — that Andrew can now see is too broken to close all the way — into place. 

It’s oddly funny to Andrew and he throws his head back and ignores the nausea and dizziness as he laughs. It doesn’t last for longer than a moment, however, because the sound of sirens (loud, loud and then louder) coming closer have his thoughts running and the armbands covering his forearms feel like they weigh a ton from one moment to the other. 

It will be way too complicated to explain them when cops show up here, they don’t seem to be big fans of Andrew when he’s armed with knives even if they can’t see them, and Andrew doesn’t feel like explaining anything, much less to cops. So he peels them off after giving it a thought, one at a time, and drops them into Neil’s lap. “You really want to put them somewhere else, don’t you? Yes? I knew you would.” 

And then Neil grabs Andrew’s wrist, and his skin is hot and Andrew is burning from the inside out, and then Neil makes a move as if to turn Andrew’s arm over, to get a look at Andrew’s scared forearms and that isn’t something Andrew can have, the thought about it right now makes him even more nauseas that he already it. He grabs Neil’s forearm with his free hand and squeezes once in warning. 

“Andrew.” 

“Just so we’re clear,” Andrew says, his lips pulling into another smile because of course this has to happen. Because of course Neil is the only one to notice the pale scars on Andrew’s arms. “I’ll kill you.” 

Neil loosens his grip at that, but he spreads his fingers as he does and Andrew throws his hand off his arm as he realizes what Neil is doing. 

“Get rid of those,” Andrew says with a glance at his armbands. He feels strange without the familiar weight and warmth of them on his body, but he knows he can’t wear them now. “Pigs don’t like it when people like me carry weapons.” 

He watches as Neil takes a moment to look from Aaron, whose eyes are focused on the door as if he thinks Luther might come back, to Nicky, whose eyes Andrew can feel burning into the side of his face, before the striker leans over and stuffs them somewhere Andrew can’t see from his position on the bed. 

It’s quiet then, for a second, until Neil says, again, “Andrew.” 

“Do us a favor,” Andrew says, suddenly so tired with his body aching and burning and everything around him spinning and turning. “Let’s not talk for a while.”

And they don’t. 

They stay quiet, as the sirens grow louder and louder, as the police and ambulance get closer and closer, as the blood painting one side of Andrew’s head in dark red dries more and more, as his head keeps hurting and his heart slams unsteadily against his ribcage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you skipped this chapter or scrolled down all the way after the bold text: hello, it’s okay. your well being, like i already said, comes first here. 
> 
> —
> 
> i wanted to post yesterday but since it was still kevin’s birthday at the time, i couldn’t bring myself to do it. especially because this one is easily one of the heaviest, if not _the_ heaviest, chapter in the whole fic and book series for me as a survivor. 
> 
> sigh. i don’t have more to say because i’m terribly tired and because this chapter took me.. a few days to write last year and working through that again is ughngngngng. 
> 
> as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments and please continue to stay safe.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER INCLUDE: 
> 
> multiple mentions of rape in the conversation between Neil and Andrew at the very beginning, mentions of Cass Spear, mentions of Drake Spear, mentions of physical abuse, nausea, mentions of Riko Moriyama.

The drive in the back of the ambulance to the emergency room at Richmond General Hospital, which seems to be quite crowded from what Andrew can see when they move past it, is nothing but an amusing blur to Andrew. And so are the looks the doctor performing the detailed exam and cognitive test keeps sending him. 

It’s not one of those wide eyed looks that you would have in your eyes after witnessing an accident with your face colorless from the shock that buries deep under your skin and makes itself a home here. No, Andrew guesses that the doctor has too much experience in his field of work to let the surprise he’s feeling show in something as obvious as that. 

But Andrew has spent too much time, far too much time, watching and analyzing the people around him in the search for a potential danger not to notice the fleeting glances he keeps sending Andrew when Andrew is able to recall stuff perfectly. 

A very, very small part of Andrew can understand this. Concussions cause memory loss in most cases, and seeing someone with their memory completely in tact must be surprising, even to someone working in a hospital, but Andrew’s memory and the darkness sipping out of the cracks deep, oh so deep inside of him are holding on to him with claws that threaten to pull him apart like a piece of paper at any second. 

Life is too cruel to let a lot of people forget, and especially someone like Andrew. 

The time between the analyzing looks shortens when the doctor tests Andrew’s vestibular, balance, and vision as a part of a neurovestibular exam (which is useless in Andrew’s opinion; it isn’t like he lost consciousness, after all). 

There, at the edge of his vision, is a blurr and everything around Andrew looks like he’s standing in front of a window that is as fogged up as his brain feels at all times, and there’s still dizziness and nausea throwing him into a carousel of things Andrew doesn’t want to feel and that he doesn’t like at all. 

He doesn’t say this though, because he might empty his stomach again and as amusing as that sounds (imagine the looks), it’s something he can’t let happen. 

Because he’s sure that this has to be a new side effect of the drugs pulling up his lips into a smile that doesn’t want to leave. Because there’s promises around his wrist that keep pulling and tugging at him, that make him want to move and move and move, and he can’t spend more time than he absolutely has to in here. 

It’s when the doctor makes his diagnosis, which is a concussion as Andrew already knew before even entering the hospital, and tells Andrew what to do and not to do (the _‘take a break’_ part has Andrew’s grin widening because he can already imagine the complete fit Kevin will throw over that one) when the door to the room opens. 

The doctor Andrew had passed on his way in enters with a plastic bag that she puts down next to Andrew. 

“These are for you, dear,” she says. Andrew grins at her for that one, because really, and his amusement bubbles up again, grows, when her eyebrows pull together and she takes a step. “Fresh clothes,” she adds when Andrew doesn’t say anything and then leaves. 

The plastic bag is blinding red, like the glow of a traffic light on a starless night, and the cool material crinkles as Andrew grabs for it to. And then it crinkles more as he upends it on the bench next to him and black fabric, black fabric that he recognizes like the back of his hand, falls out. 

He picks up the hooded sweatshirt, runs his thumb over the soft material of it and watches the way it seems to swallow up the light from above as his thoughts run and run and run. Because this hoodie, and the dark sweatpants still on the left of his thigh, are pieces of clothing that Andrew remembers seeing in his closet back at Palmetto. And this means that either someone had gone back to fetch these or that someone had brought them. 

Andrew guesses it’s the latter; he clearly remembers his brother being led down the stairs in cuffs, his cousin crying and crying and crying and not in the right state of mind to do anything, much less drive a car. 

That leaves Neil and Kevin, but Kevin gets automatically ruled out because Andrew doesn’t trust him with his car and Neil, from what Andrew had seen, had refused to say even one word to the six police officers — which hadn’t done anything to snuff out Andrew’s curiosity. 

Feisty, feisty, he thinks as he puts on the clothes and the pain burning through his body like a small flame licking up the side of a building makes the grin on his face grow wider. He stuffs his old clothes, ripped and bloody as they are, into the trash can near the door on his way out.

When he steps through the back doors leading to the waiting area, Andrew’s guess gets confirmed when he sees first Neil sitting on one of the chairs and then the man walking towards him. “Coach, hello,” he says and laughs because this is unexpected and terribly amusing. “I don’t remember inviting you to this debacle.” 

“You didn’t,” Wymack says. 

The wheels inside of Andrew’s head spin like the machinery of a clockwork tower, they turn and twist and go faster and faster, go the same speed as his erratic thoughts, almost fast enough that another wave of dizziness has him stopping. 

“Kevin,” Andrew guesses when the other man doesn’t say more, because Aaron and Nicky had both been by the bed — Nicky near the bed and Aaron on the bed with his hair in Andrew’s grip — and close to where he had been sitting with Neil. It makes his amusement grow, impossible as it seems. It’s oddly fitting, Andrew thinks, for Kevin to call Wymack and not say a single word to Andrew. “A traitor to the end.” 

He motions for Wymack to lead the way, suddenly extremely bored of the hospital and the looks not only Wymack but also Neil, who still doesn’t talk, send him. 

They make it to where Wymack’s car is parked right around the corner in silence and Andrew opens the passenger door once the sound of it unlocking rings through the air. He drums his fingers on the door as he considers the seat in front of him, because he knows the fire burning inside of him will meet gasoline and turn bigger, brighter, hotter and more destructive when he sits down. 

Wymack seems to understand his hesitation, because he understands far too much about Andrew than Andrew likes, and says, “There’s more room to stretch out in the back.” 

“Oh, you are right,” Andrew says, because it is the truth but actually doing that would make Andrew look something as close to vulnerable as someone like him can get and it’s not a word for people like him, now is it? He tightens his grip on the door, fingers no longer moving, as he heaves himself in slowly and can’t help but laugh at the gasoline stained piece of wood catching fire inside of him at the movement. “Ouch.” 

The door shakes with the force Wymack uses to close his own door and then the engine comes to live with a loud hum as he twists the keys in the ignition. Andrew stares out of the window, looks at the shadows he can barely make out with half of his world still moving this way and that way as if he just walked out of a rollercoaster ride. Ah, Andrew really doesn’t like those at all. 

“Any time now,” Wymack says with impatience in his voice.

“Right, right,” Andrew says and rolls his head on the soft material behind it to turn his grin on Wymack. The seatbelt is cool between his fingers as he pulls on it to fasten it and it makes Andrew grin wider, more crazy, because it’s so much cooler than his skin and that must truly, truly mean that he’s burning. Maybe it will crawl out of his mouth and ears, set everything alight and cause the destruction people seem to think Andrew does anyway. “Safety first.” 

He turns his head back to the window as they drive and clenches his teeth against the hot pain inside of him, growing hotter and hotter, and watches trees and houses and cars pass by until he starts to recognize them. There’s a white house at the corner of the street Wymack takes a right at, it’s clean and bright in the darkness of the evening, with the lights on and people moving behind the glass of the windows and it’s a house they always pass on the way to their house. 

And they do drive to their house, Andrew realizes a second later, and then they pull up to the sidewalk in front of it and Andrew can see a small car, nauseating green and with something bright yellow dangling from the rearview mirror. He can see it happening as if it had been a few moments ago instead of months; him throwing the horrible looking sunflower on the table in Bee’s office, his mind buzzing three miles off the ground. Andrew already knows who it is, the car screams her name even if Andrew hadn’t seen it before, but he looks down at the license plate saying DB anyway. 

Something else starts to burn inside of him the longer he looks at it, another part of the house sparking and growing hot and hotter and melting and dying. 

“There is a really good explanation for this,” Andrew says and waits a second. Then another one. He taps his fingers against the chilly window on his right, fingertips leaving marks and smudging on it. “I can’t wait to hear it.” 

“You know why she’s here.” 

“I don’t, Coach.” He knows what this means; it means that Bee knows about this, about what happened and Andrew doesn’t want her to, he didn’t want anyone to know after the last time (misunderstanding, a dark part of his mind repeats like a broken record) and he definitely doesn’t want to talk about this with her. Not like this. Or ever. “This isn’t her business.” 

Wymack pulls in behind Bee’s car. “Don’t even start,” he says and turns off the engine. Silence stretches out over them, covers them like a thin blanket of snow would do with the ground outside until Wymack says, “I know you didn’t honestly think you could keep this from her for long.” 

Oh, but Andrew did. Because Bee respects his boundaries and doesn’t push him to talk, takes his cheerful no’s and accepts them, even if there has to be at least some part of her that wonders. 

“But bringing her along tonight wasn’t my idea, so don’t give me that look.” Andrew raises his arms in a mockingly innocent gesture, let’s his smile grow, bares more of his teeth. “I didn’t know Abby invited her until we were on the road.” 

And that means that someone else Andrew cannot remember inviting to tag along is there, pushing themselves into something they have no business poking into, and Andrew remembers everything (and he remembers and remembers, it’s record and repeat and repeat and repeat again and again) and it makes something like rage, dark and sticky, run along his skin until another wave of amusement washes it away. 

“I hate all of you,” Andrew says and gets out of the car and into the cold. 

The front door opens before Andrew is even halfway there and then Bee steps outside which, hilariously, causes Neil to stop walking. 

Seeing her here, in Columbia, on a night like tonight, is different than knowing she is here and Andrew comes to a halt almost next to Neil. 

“Oh, Bee! What amazing timing we were just talking about you.” Andrew says, his mind buzzing like a busy bee on a hot summer day, and isn’t that funny because two bees this close to each other is way too loud, and way too fast for him to attempt follow with nausea still crawling up his throat. He throws his arms out as his fingers begin to itch. “I’ve got other things to do right now but Neil said he would keep you company in my stead. You don’t mind, do you?” he asks Neil and continues before Neil has the chance to answer, because Andrew knows how much Neil dislikes Bee and what his answer would be. “I didn’t think you would.” 

“I mind,” Neil says, as if Andrew actually cares about that, and then, as if that’s surprising, “I have nothing to say to her.” 

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” Andrew says and throws him a grin over his shoulder. Yes, someone like Neil with a list of issues seemingly as long as Andrew’s own and someone who lies without their pulse jumping will definitely come up with something, anything, to say to Bee. “You always do, right? It doesn’t have to be the truth, you know. Bee’s not expecting honesty from you.” Not after Andrew told her not to. “I told her not to trust a single word you say. Or have you started playing the secrets game with her, too?” 

Andrew knows that Neil hasn’t, cautious and untrusting as he is around Bee. Neil frowns at him then, something fierce and small in his eyes. “I said no.”

“You misunderstand. I wasn’t asking, Neil,” Andrew says and turns to face him completely. He stuffs his cold hands into the pockets of his pants, the soft material of them scratching against the raw skin of his wrists. “You helped create this mess. The least you could do is help clean it up. Where’s your sense of responsibility?” 

Neil takes a stumbling step back, his face white and only his cheeks red from the cold. He looks as if Andrew had taken one of the knives in his armbands (ah, his armbands) and shoved into his abdomen. 

It tells Andrew more than words can, it tells Andrew that Neil doesn’t completely understand what he said, that he takes the words for something else that they aren’t. 

He sees it then, the guilt in Neil’s dark eyes that bleeds out of them like blood does out of an open wound and it’s idiotic, really, because Andrew understands the difference between assigning blame, which is what he does just now, and blaming someone, which is what Neil thinks he’s doing. 

Tonight isn’t Neil’s fault, and Andrew isn’t holding him accountable for it. What he isn’t saying is that he knows Neil unknowingly had a hand in this when he sided with Nicky’s grief of wanting to see his parents again. He’s not holding Neil personally accountable for this. It isn’t a “you did this to me”,but a “you played some part of the tragedy” and that’s what Neil doesn’t seem to hear even if it’s there and stitched into Andrew’s words bright enough for Neil to make out. 

“Where is yours?” Neil asks back then, voice rough and quiet, and oh, that’s new. It sounds like a game of hot potato with the blame that Andrew doesn’t even put on Neil in the first place, and that’s, irritatingly, enough to have Andrew tip his head to one side in a show of confusion to make Neil continue. “Why didn’t you tell Higgins?” 

“Wouldn’t have worked,” Andrew says, pulls his left shoulder up in a shrug that sends a wave of hot pain all the way down his body. “Pig wasn’t ready to hear it back then. He and Drake were friends, you see.” He remembers thinking this when Higgins had been in Palmetto and vocalizes it, “They met when Drake went through the PAL program and hit it off somehow or other. I knew he wouldn’t believe me—” or, worse, call it a _misunderstanding_ like Luther had done “—so I didn’t waste my time trying.” 

“So you did nothing,” Neil says and his Adam’s apple jumps when he swallows once. Then another time. “You almost put a knife between Nicky’s ribs when he flirted with me, but you didn’t lift a finger to protect Cass’s other children.” 

Yes, Andrew supposes, this might look bad when you don’t take into consideration that there’s a big, big promise that has been shattered into a million pieces and sprinkled around him on the ground like glass shards that hurt with every step you take. A promise he had believed in, as if this one would’ve been the one to stretch and bend and not snap in the middle like a rubber band pulled too far. 

Andrew didn’t lift a finger, that is true, but he didn’t have anything to lift a finger for because he believed in this promise, and he believed that he was the last child Cass was ever able to have. 

“You knew what Drake would do to them, but you didn’t protect them.” 

Andrew looks back at the promise, grabs the broken pieces of it and squeezes it hard enough that the sharp edges bury themselves between his skin, hard enough that the skin breaks and paints the colorless pieces angry red. “There weren’t supposed to be other children.” 

“But there were.” 

And then, all of a sudden, a laugh breaks out of Andrew. He feels like he’s flying again, but instead of going up up up like his drugs make him feel, he’s a meteor of anger crashing through the atmosphere of the earth and falling at a speed high enough that everything around him burns and he doesn’t feel real, and it makes him reach out to wrap his fingers around Neil’s throat. 

It’s not enough to cut off his air, but enough to be a warning because this all sounds a lot like a misplaced accusation (because this isn’t Andrew’s fault, and he knows it and somewhere, he knows that Neil does too) and Andrew is really, really tired. 

“I hope she was worth it,” Neil says, and Andrew’s palm tingles with the vibrations of Neil’s throat as he does. 

He leans forward at those words, though, to keep his voice quiet enough that neither Wymack or Bee hear him when he says, “Oh, Neil. You are far too heavy to tread ice this thin.” 

Instead of taking this as what it is, as another warning, Neil reaches up to take hold of Andrew’s wrist. “Is this how you stayed quiet?” he asks, the warmth of his palm burning through the cotton sleeve of Andrew’s hoodie and slipping through Andrew’s ruined skin like water does with paper. Andrew goes still for a second because that’s too close to the truth, too close to something he doesn’t actually feel like talking about, but then his amusement pushes through it, pushes through his frozen thoughts and makes his smile grow. “Did you do this so you wouldn’t tell her the truth?” 

“Maybe I did,” Andrew says, which is neither confirmation or denial. He really can’t remember it being Neil’s turn in their little truth game. 

“What were you trying to do, outlast him?” Neil asks, warm breath fanning over Andrew’s fact. “He was a graduating senior intent on enlisting, right?” He continues right away, “All you had to do was hold out until graduation and then she would adopt you. So what went wrong?” 

There it is again, the anger, the flame cupped in hands and held over carefully poured gasoline that threatens to destroy everything, and the flame drops and it connects with the gasoline and then it grows and grows, and Andrew’s hands tighten because he knows what Neil is doing here. 

He knows it and his grip tightens more because this is ridiculous and interesting and so, so dangerous that Andrew feels like he’s balancing on a thin rope hundreds of feet in the air, with his heart slamming against his chest and sounding like a fist meeting the wood of a door, in an attempt to make it to the other side. 

He loosens his grip and then slides his hand around the back of Neil’s neck to pull him in close as he remembers, the movie always playing and playing inside of him, and grins wider as he says, “Drake deferred his enlistment.” 

Andrew can see it now, the moment Cass had said it to him. 

It had been in the summer, cicadas screaming outside and grasshoppers visible with every jump from one place to the other. The sun radiant and wrapping them in her warmth and rays so brilliant like stars. The leaves of the trees in the garden are dark green and full, and the flowers are open and colorful with their heads tilted towards the burning ball on the horizon. Something that smells sweet and like christmas is in the air, painting the kitchen in a wonderland. 

There’s a purple apron around Cass’s waist, a kitchen towel thrown over her shoulder and dough from cookies sticking to her fingers. And the smile she carries is bright and happy, her voice like soft bells but then they turn into nails scratching on a chalkboard, the movie changes into something similar to a horror movie as the program changes with the next words Andrew hears, and all in one second it takes to blink. 

“He wanted to make the most of his last summer with his baby brother. He even asked Cass if we could invite Aaron up for a couple of weeks so we could all meet,” he says, the memories tasting like something rotten and long expired on his tongue, the memories of ten red flags shooting into the air at the same time. “Cass left it up to me, but whenever she wasn’t looking Drake tried talking me into it. He wanted to get both of us in the same place. He could imagine what we’d look like in bed together, he said.” His stomach turns and turns, sloshing with nausea and amusement and a lick of anger. “It’d be picture perfect.” 

Neil flinches, so hard that Andrew can clearly feel the way his body shivers, and then he pushes back to look at Andrew’s face, to search Andrew’s face for something Andre knows he won’t be able to find. 

But this brings his thoughts back to something else, to something more important than the setback Andrew ignores and sidesteps like it’s nothing. Like he has always done. 

“Speaking of the other Minyard,” he says, lets go of Neil and then raises his voice enough that Wymack can hear it as he says, “He really did it, didn’t he? Probably the most decisive thing he’s ever managed.” 

Even more decisive than the promise he made to Andrew and broke like it was nothing, like it was a thin piece of paper he broke through with a stone carrying a name starting with the letter k. 

“Where was that spine when his mother was beating him?” When she took her aggression out on him and made him addicted to something hard and expensive and dangerous. “It would have come in handy in all those years. Someone ought to congratulate him.” 

Or twist his neck around one hundred and eighty degrees. Andrew pretends to still be undecided on that one. 

“Aaron is under arrest,” Bee says from where she’s standing behind Aaron, not that Andrew hadn’t suspected this after seeing his brother walk off in handcuffs and flanked by two pigs. “Why don’t you come inside so we can talk about it?” 

Andrew turns to look at her, surprised that she’s still here because he remembers saying he has somewhere to be, and it comes back to him as his fingers begin itching for a cigarette, for something familiar that he knows, again. Because he still doesn’t feel like talking to her. Or being around her right now. “Are you still here, Bee?” 

“For a few moments later,” Bee says with a glance over her shoulder. “The milk’s almost done heating. I picked some up on the way over so we could have some cocoa. I brought the entire canister of dark chocolate hazelnut with me.” She knows that this is his favorite. It’s oddly infuriating and amusing to Andrew. “If we start drinking it now, we could probably make ourselves sick off of it by midnight.” 

Neil’s hand is still attached to Andrew like a leech, and he uses it to drag Neil’s arm around enough that he can get a look at the watch on the striker’s wrist. It’s close to eight, which means that Andrew is due for his last pill of the day soon, and coupled with the nausea still crawling up his throat and the hot chocolate, he supposes he can get sick again. “You think of everything, Bee. We’ll be in soon.” 

As soon as Bee is back inside and the doorframe empty to give Andrew a clear view of the hallway leading into the living room, he tries to tug his arm free and looks at Neil, amusement bubbling up at the look on Neil’s face. 

“Better luck next time, Neil,” he says. He knows that this was an attempt, some kind of try to get Andrew to feel anything other than amusement, but the ball soared right out of the stadium instead of into the goal. “I warned you once, didn’t I?” he asks and doesn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t feel anything.” 

“Anymore,” Neil says, his voice barely a whisper and it’s not a lie, not even close to being one. In fact, it’s far too close to the truth to be comfortable to Andrew and he considers shoving Neil to get his arm back so he can escape this boring conversation about feelings that Bee is for when Neil lets go. 

Andrew gives him a shrug, exaggerated and with his shoulders near his ears, because it’s not like Neil’s wrong, and then walks into the house and into the kitchen to collect his cup of hot chocolate. He doesn’t get the chance to let the warmth of the dark porcelain chase away the irritating sparks all over his skin because there’s a cry of “Andrew!” and then Nicky flings himself at Andrew. 

The cup lands on the counter with a hard clack, the cocoa sloshes over the edge and runs down the sides of it like acrylic colors do with a canvas after being squeezed on it, and Andrew looks as Nicky spreads his arms, and everything in him goes no no no, and there’s fire and gasoline again and he feels like he’s being burned alive and he takes a step back and then another, hand reaching for the block of knives on his left. 

And then Wymack is there and pulls Nicky back before he can make another step. There’s the sound of a door slamming shut and then silence. And more silence. Andrew picks up his cup again, blows air on it through the smile still attached to his face. He looks over Wymack’s shoulder. Feels his lips twitch up at the corners when he doesn’t spot or hears Neil. 

“Oh, but Wymack,” he says, then takes a sip of the cocoa. It burns on his tongue, but it’s nothing like the burn of the discolored bruises on his body, like the screams of his muscles and skin. “It’s not a very long way from the front yard to the front door, now is it? How did you manage to lose one of yours? Are you really getting that old? Careful now, Wymack.” 

Wymack pushes out a sigh that has his shoulders dropping. He sits down on the table a few feet away from Andrew and next to where Abby is sitting with Kevin and Nicky. Andrew doesn’t spare them more than a glance; they seem to be fine. 

Well, physically. Anything else doesn’t concern him very much right now. 

“Neil took off,” Wymack says and Andrew grins some more as he takes another step. It’s funny, how predictable Neil turns out to be sometimes and how unreadable, how foreign he is in other moments. Highly intriguing. And infuriating. “Told me he’s fine and then ran like hell was chasing him. Fucking kid. I’m getting too old to deal with this shit. Don’t even think about saying anything, Andrew.” 

Andrew lets his eyes go wide at that, because, really, Andrew would never. “Wasn’t even thinking about it! I will shut up now, see?” He mimes zipping his lips shut, though he thinks the grin pulling up his lips softens the effect a little. And the fact that everyone in here seems to be such a Debbie Downer today. What a shame, really. His comedic genius is absolutely wasted on them. It’s funny to him either way, especially when another thought comes to him. “Oh, I remember!” 

Bee smiles at him and Wymack lets out another sigh. Abby pats both Kevin and Nicky’s hands as if they actually need some sort of comfort right now and Andrew smacks a fist against his forehead, the noise loud in the silence ruling in the room. “What do you remember, Andrew?” 

“My appointment. I did tell you about this, right? I did, right, right,” he says and nods. Kevin is here, he reminds himself and takes another look at him. “I need to go there like right now and not look at any of your ugly faces until after I got some sleep. Since I’m a growing boy, and all that.” 

Nicky lets out a pained noise. Maybe Abby kicked him under the table. 

“Andrew, what?” 

“What?” Andrew looks at Wymack, a sudden wave of exhaustion crashing over the fragile building carrying his name and almost sweeping him off his feet. “You’re so weird, Wymack. Why don’t _you_ talk to Bee instead while you wait for Neil to come back from his run? Yes? And don’t break anything too important, that would be rude. Okay? Good!”

He turns then, cup still in hand and cocoa sloshing to the left and right as he quickly climbs up the stairs to the second floor. 

The light in his room is warm and soft when Andrew turns it on, and it throws faint shadows on everything as he makes his way to the bedside table to put down his cup. The clothes Wymack had brought him land at the very back of his closet where Andrew doesn’t have to look at them, and then everything turns and spins again by the time he’s changed into shorts and a shirt to sleep in. 

Then there’s silence again after he shuts the light and lays down in his bed, the mattress soft but like clouds, not like the hell he walked through with feet bare and burned already, and swallows against the nausea crawling up his skin, heart beating rapidly in his chest, as he starts counting the stars on the sky. 

***

There’d the sound of something slamming, coming from too close, it sounds like a gunshot, a hard and fast bang and Andrew is awake in an instant. 

His heart slams against his chest as his hands move under his pillow in search for his armbands, for his knives, and they find nothing and Andrew freezes, for all but a second, before his memories come to him, press him into the mattress and against the wall at his back. He opens his eyes half a heartbeat later and squints against the brightness of his room. 

The sunlight slips in through his window near his bed, paints everything golden and Andrew burns. 

Pain, hard and hot, is all over his body, his muscles pull and scream with it as he sits up and then there’s more pain and then cold, chilly on his warm skin, when he throws the blanket off his body to get up and get dressed. 

He pulls out some of the clothes he hadn’t packed when he moved to the Fox Tower in Palmetto, a heavy black turtleneck and a pair of pants in the same color — tight but not too tight to be uncomfortable. 

Another wave of nausea crawls up his throat, similar but also different from the night before because this is something he knows like the back of his hand or the face looking back at him from the mirror, and it has Andrew reaching for his pills and swallowing one dry. 

The sound of the mechanism of the door as he unlocks it is loud in the otherwise quiet house, and Andrew only has a moment to wonder about that, because he could’ve sworn that there were other people here the day before. Then he swings his door shut and the sound of a gasp reaches his ears — it has him instantly reach for his armbands and brush the naked, scarred skin of his forearm before he sees Abby standing in the hallway with a hand over her chest. 

“Oh, hello there!” Andrew says, his medicine already making its way through his system and causing his lips to curl up at the corners. There are dark circles under Abby’s eyes, as if she didn’t get enough sleep, and her eyes are blown wide. “Are you okay, Abby? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He leans out of his room and then closes the door behind him. Looks up and down the hallway. “I hope this house isn’t haunted or something, that wouldn’t be much fun. You see, Nicky’s a little scaredy cat.” 

Abby blinks at him and Andrew blinks back at her. “Andrew, good morning,” she says and Andrew waves at her. “I was just on my way downstairs. Do you want to come with me?” 

“I don’t want anything,” Andrew says but starts walking into the direction of the stairs anyway. His footsteps are loud in the otherwise quiet house, his boots slamming down on the stairs. “But I’m hungry and I need food, you see. I’m a growing boy, did you know that? Yes, right?” 

Abby smiles at him then, but it’s small, not at all like her and as if Andrew’s a ticking time bomb, which it’s terribly amusing to him on an empty stomach. 

Andrew waves his hand around as he steps onto the first stair, as it creaks under the combined weight of his body and Abby’s. “Our breakfast situation is actually a little dire, which is stupid because I’m very hungry but we didn’t expect to stay in Columbia overnight, so the only groceries we have are the milk and cooca powder Bee brought.” The thoughts inside of his head keep going faster and faster, bounce around in it as the familiar fog and glitter sets over it, as the colors everywhere get brighter and brighter. He’s at the base of the stairs when he considers eating the cocoa powder for breakfast, but then his eyes move from Abby and then he’s falling and falling as he sees Neil. 

“Oh, Neil is back,” he says and lifts one of his arms against the scream of his muscles to point at him. “We thought perhaps you got lost.” 

“I’m never lost.” 

“And never found,” Andrew says with a nod, because of course Neil isn’t lost. How ridiculous. “All for the best, I’m sure. But good timing either way. This solves our problems,” he says and then looks at Bee, who is standing slightly behind Nicky and Kevin to his right, as his stomach twists with hunger. “Right, Bee?” 

She gently moves Kevin and Nicky out of the way as Andrew wags his fingers at her and Andrew grins when she comes closer before he points at Neil again. He remembers Neil saying that he wouldn’t talk to Neil, and that’s just very rude in Andrew’s opinion because Bee is very nice and silly. 

He ignores the hypocrisy of that thought and says, “He knows where we left the car, and you know where the store is.” Neil is still wearing the same grey shirt he’d been wearing the day before, wrinkled and with bloodstains and Andrew really doesn’t like looking at it. “Try to pick him up some clothes on the way, yeah?” He leans forward as if he’s going to tell Bee a secret, as if there’s anything she doesn’t know now that wants to share. “He’s going to start smelling if we leave him too long.” 

Bee nods. “Did you want anything in particular for breakfast?”

“No special requests,” Andrew says. The most important thing is getting something, anything, to eat into his stomach and a different shirt for Neil. “You can ask the ghosts back there,” he adds with a nod to Kevin and Nicky, “but I don’t think they have much of an opinion today. Maybe you’re losing your touch, Bee. Did you at least talk to Wymack? He was being awfully odd. I worry about him, you see.” 

“Oh,” he says then before anyone (meaning Bee or Neil because the others watch Andrew as if he’s a wild animal, which isn’t anything he isn’t used to) can say anything else, “but here. Neil is going to need this.” 

He pats at his pockets, in search of his keys, and finds them in the pocket on the back on the third try. They glint in the faint light spilling in from the windows as Bee takes them and turns around to leave, but Andrew holds the back of her shirt. 

“Exites,” he says, because that’s the closest store with clothing items that can possibly interest a one track mind like Neil. “Kevin has the card.” The material of her shirt slips through his fingers as she goes and Andrew looks at Neil, who is looking at Kevin, and that really won’t do so Andrew claps in his hands. “Don’t forget my knives, okay? I’m going to want them. Goodbye.” 

Andrew sends him the two finger salute he had sent Neil the first time they met and then makes his way into the kitchen to the sound of the front door opening and closing. 

Wymack is sitting at the dining table with a newspaper in his hands that Andrew has no idea where it came from since they don’t get newspaper delivered here, and a steaming cup of milk in front of him. Just milk. No cocoa. 

Oh, Andrew thinks as he moves inside and wags his fingers at his Coach when he looks up, he really, really hopes Bee and Wymack had a talk. 

There’s a pot with steaming milk on the stove and the pack of cocoa a few inches next to it, and the idea of eating the powder like that comes back to Andrew, and he moves to grab a spoon out of the cabinet to the right. And then there’s that noise again, that pained noise that comes from the back of the throat, from deep inside someone, and Andrew glances over his shoulder with curiosity eating away at him because he wants to see but then there’s someone coming closer and saying his name and Andrew thinks nonono and he slides one of the knives from the kitchen block out, and it’s sharp and long and big and—

—and then Wymack is in front of him, and Andrew’s heart slams against his ribcage as a laugh bubbles up inside of him, pushing Nicky back and into Kevin, who pulls Nicky out of the room before Andrew has a chance to throw his Coach to the side and stab his cousin. 

“For fucks sake, Minyard,” Wymack says, but he sounds more exhausted than angry and the dark circles under his eyes match the ones under Abby’s. Maybe, Andrew thinks as he obediently shoves the knife back into the block when Wymack raises his eyebrow before throwing up his hands to show that he’s innocent, they should all talk to Bee. Definitely Wymack, who sighs now as if this is all very straining to him. “Can’t catch a break with you, can we?” 

“But we have holidays soon, Coach! Age is really getting to you, isn’t it? Tragic, really,” Andrew says and looks at his covered wrist as if he’s wearing a watch there, the idea of eating the cocoa suddenly unappealing to him. “And you can’t catch a break, it’s in the contract. I can, though! Don’t bother me if someone dies. I won’t care!”

Andrew doesn’t wait for anyone else to say something and leaves the kitchen again. Takes two stairs at a time to get to the second floor quicker and enters his room. Opens his nightstand to pull out another pack of cigarettes that he takes to the window and sits down on the desk near it after opening it. 

The melody of the song that had been playing the day before at Exites comes back to him, cheery and with bells and like christmas, and Andrew hums the melody and watches the clouds. Watches them get bigger and bigger and travel across the horizon. Watches the forms they build as the sun climbs higher and higher quickly and has his eyes on one that looks like a frog with five legs as the sound of a car coming closer reaches his ears. 

Two doors getting slammed shut has Andrew thinking that it must be Neil and Bee, even if the timing and number of cars doesn’t add up, but then the sound of the doorbell rings through the house, shrill and loud, and Andrew pulls out another cigarette. 

There’s a knock on his door a minute later, which is a minute too late if this had been Bee and Neil, and then his door opens when he cheerfully says, “fuck off! thank you!” and something inside of Andrew, the wall of fog and glitter and colors so bright he almost has to look away, cracks once. 

Because no, this isn’t Neil, or Bee, or even only one person. 

Mr. Waterhouse is the first person he sees, and Andrew knew he was coming because of his brother, who is here to help his brother. He’s wearing a suit, grey and ugly like all lawyer outfits, with a red tie and his blonde hair is combed back. His bushy eyebrows lift when he says, “Good morning, Andrew.” 

Andrew can’t remember when they got on a first name basis (he can, and it was the first time they had met each other), but this isn’t what he’s focused on right now — his gaze is glued to the man entering after his lawyer. 

He’s tall, taller than Mr. Waterhouse, and dressed in a black suit that makes him seem even taller. His bald head reflects the rays of the sun streaming in through the open window and his glasses slip down his nose. 

“Oh, I really, really don’t like this surprise,” Andrew says and lights his cigarette to take a drag. His amusement bubbles over, runs over the edge of the glass inside of him and keeps spilling everywhere. It bleeds out of him as if he’s an open wound and stains everything he comes in contact with, almost impossible to get rid of. And, really, seeing the man that had been the prosecuting attorney at the trial that damned Andrew to the medications tugging up his lips into a grin might be his least favorite surprise. A surprise that doesn’t make any sense. “What the fuck are you doing here?” 

“Hello, Andrew,” Mr. Blackwell says and closes the door behind himself and the lawyer. He leans his back against it, hands in his pockets in a pose that is supposed to seem casual but looks anything but in Andrew’s opinion. The pole tightly lodged up his ass might be scratching his brain a little too much, but Andrew doesn’t say this of course. “We will come to this later.”

And later, as it turns out, is when Andrew smoked through three more cigarettes that all gather on the windowsill after he’s done with them, when he cheerfully tells Mr. Waterhouse about what happened the night before, about Aaron slamming Neil’s racquet into Drake’s head and squishing his eyeball like a piece of candy. As Mr. Waterhouse listens and nods and asks questions here and there that seems completely useless to Andrew and as Mr. Blackwell listens with a wrinkle between his eyebrows that gets bigger and bigger the more Andrew talks. 

And he talks and talks, tells them almost everything they want to know, because, really, having Aaron in jail would be much more trouble than having him out of it, even if he broke their promise a long time ago. 

It’s when Bee, Wymack and Abby join them that Mr. Waterhouse folds his notes and puts them in his pockets. It’s then when Andrew finds out why the fuck Mr. Blackwell is here. 

He hears them talk to each other, talk to him, but Andrew’s thoughts turn and they twist and go fast and fast and fast. Because what they’re saying makes no sense to him, not at first. Going off his drugs now instead of the following year, Bee says, is the only ethical solution. 

Abby shakes her head as Wymack agrees. 

Andrew looks between them, looks to Bee and Mr.Blackwell, who has to sign off on this, who has to sign off on Andrew going off his drugs and being admitted to Easthaven Hospital and takes a drag of his cigarette. Something inside him cracks, and then cracks again and again. 

Going to Easthaven, even if it might be the best solution, means leaving people behind, it means leaving Kevin behind, and Andrew cannot protect him like that. There hasn’t been more than a campus between them since they made their promise, since the deal was sealed, and Andrew cannot imagine not being close, not being there when something happens again — but instead of being in Kathy Ferdinand’s studio and being forced to listen and not being able to act like every fiber of his being screams, he will be miles away and not know until it’s perhaps too late. 

He doesn’t agree to this, not at all, but Mr.Blackwell nods as Bee talks and talks and he listens and nods some more and then he pulls out a pen and—

—and Andrew feels like he’s falling, he feels like he’s shoved from a building so high up that you can’t make out the ground waiting for him to make contact. He feels like he’s drowning, the darkness inside of him breathing and covering him whole and swallowing him until there’s nothing but it left. Mr.Blackwell signs off on it, and Andrew can feel the time slipping through his fingers like sand does when you pick it up and spread your hands. 

But there’s a part of him, small as it is, that knows he will be able to protect Kevin better, to hold his end of the promise completely, when he’s off his medicine, when he doesn’t walk on tiles that shift and move and vibrate with every step he takes. 

And then there’s suddenly an urge inside of him, one that brings back all of the noises he has blended out, and it breaking through the glass and the cracks inside of it get bigger and then bigger until it shatters into brilliant sparks and he says, “Kevin” when Mr.Blackwell and Bee shake hands once. 

Then Andrew’s moving, pushing off the table and out of the room, then down the stairs and the others follow him because he needs to see Kevin, he needs to see him right in front of himself and look and see— “Kevin,” he calls before he reaches the last stair. 

There is Kevin, then, in the doorway to the kitchen with his eyes wide and confused and Andrew cannot bring up the energy to think about how horrendous he looks because he pats Kevin down, looks for injuries he’s sure aren’t there and thinks that he’ll better stay in one ugly piece when he comes back. 

“Still in one piece,” Andrew says and nods, and looks from one of Kevin’s eyes to the other. Thinks about the promise they made again and about how he’s going to fulfill his side of it, even if he knows Kevin won’t be able to. “For how much longer, I wonder? This is a bad idea, Bee,” he says without looking away from Kevin, as if that can change anything. “You know this as well as I do.” 

Kevin frowns at Andrew, looks over his head to where Bee and the others have to be standing and then back to Andrew. “What’s wrong?” 

“Oh, but you haven’t heard.” Andrew acts as if this isn’t news to him and motions for Kevin to lean closer before he says, with his voice not lowered, “Time’s up, off we go. She’s going to get rid of this for us.” He lifts a hand to drag a thumb over the smile on his lips that grows before he laughs, amusement a bright, bright spark inside of him. “Someone should warn the doctors what they’re in for!” One of the terms Andrew had agreed to, three years when he got his happy pills, is twenty-four-hour supervision during his rehabilitation. Oh, the doctors will regret that, he’s sure. “They’ll lock the door and throw away the keys by the time I’m done with them.” 

“Get rid of that,” Kevin echoes, like a cave you speak too loudly into and then blinks and looks at Bee again. “It’s too early,” he says, because of course that’s where his mind goes first. That one track mind of his will get him problems sooner rather than later, Andrew’s sure. Maybe Kevin and Wymack should both talk to Bee. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“The right thing.” 

Kevin’s reaction is more predictable than anything else and it’s so, so funny and infuriating to Andrew that it has him spinning back to Bee with a bright grin on his face. 

“Look at that face, Bee,” he says and lifts his hand until it smacks against Kevin’s cheek. “He wants me sober more than almost anyone does, but only if the timing’s right.” Only if it fits in the schedule of Exy, only if it doesn’t ruin their season, only then. “I warned you, didn’t I? Who will take care of Kevin if I’m gone? I can’t trust him wandering around here by himself,” he says. He’s sure Coach would watch after Kevin but Coach does have his own life, which is something he says. and then, “Kevin’s kind of a full-time job.” 

This promise is important to Andrew, all promises are, but he doesn’t mention this to anyone else because he knows they wouldn’t understand. 

They wouldn’t understand that seeing his end of it through is the least he can do because no one has ever hold their end of it, and it’s the least Andrew can do, and he’s too, too curious to see if Kevin can actually be the first person to finish through with it or if this promise breaks like a glass falling onto the floor like Andrew expects it to. Like he has learned to expect this being the end of promises. 

“We’ll take care of it,” Wymack says, and he says it casually and, no, this really won’t do. 

“Oh, come on, Coach,” Andrew says and thinks, show me. Show me that you’ll watch him, that I can trust you just a little bit more. “You’ve got to do better than that. Try again; I’ll wait here until you think of something more convincing to say.” 

And then something truly funny happens. Because Andrew thinks he hears Neil, of all people say, that he’s going to watch Kevin. It makes Andrew freeze for a second, only for the time it takes him to blink and realize that he didn’t imagine this, and then he pushes Kevin out of the way to look at Neil. To look at him in his new, dark shirt and his brown eyes and dark hair. “You?” 

He waits a heartbeat, and then another one, for Neil to drop the act and laugh and clap and say that this is all a joke because there is absolutely no way that he actually means this, but it doesn’t come. There’s rage sparking to life inside of him again, hot and bright and it runs along his skin and it burns and pulls at him and then he’s moving to push Neil. Once. And then a second time and Neil wraps his hands around his arms and pulls Andrew with him. 

“Oh, Neil,” Andrew says, his vision going red with the amusement and rage inside of him mixing into a dangerous cocktail, and then switches to German. “You and I both know you have a dreadful sense of humor, so this can’t be a joke. What do you think you’re doing?” he asks because, really, what is Neil trying to do here. Andrew spends a second thinking about it, trying to make sense of it, but this new puzzle piece doesn’t fit anywhere and Andrew hates how interesting it makes him. “What are you trying to do?” 

“Take responsibility.” 

And that—that doesn’t make much more sense than anything else about him does. 

“Usually such a good liar,” Andrew says, because Neil sounds choked up and quiet and so very different from the man with a sharp tongue he usually is, “but this time you aren’t fooling anyone. Am I to believe you’ll hold your ground if Riko comes at you?” he asks because they both know how that went the last two times Neil and the Raven met each other. What if Riko catches hold of the men Neil has been on the run from and he leaves without looking back, and takes this annoying attraction pulling and tugging at Andrew with him. “Maybe I’ll come back and you won’t be here anymore.” 

“If I was going to leave I would have done so at the banquet when Riko called me by my name,” Neil says, eyes narrowed in a glare that does nothing to intimidate Andrew. “I won’t lie and say I didn’t think about it, but I decided to stay. I trusted you more than I was scared of him.” 

Andrew remembers Neil walking back onto the court, shaken and face without any of its usual color, eyes blown wide with an emotion Andrew hadn't been able to read. He had pulled his phone out of his pocket, the phone Andrew had bought for him, and said he had made a different call this time. 

“So trust me now if you can. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll take care of Kevin until you return.” 

“Trust you.” Andrew gives it a moment, thinks about trusting someone who rules a kingdom built out of lies and deceit, and laughs at the absurdity of it. He reaches out to curl his fingers around Neil’s chin tightly, but straightens his pinky to feel Neil’s pulse at the side of his neck. “You lie, and lie, and lie, and you think I’ll trust you with his life?” 

Neil blinks slowly. “Then don’t trust ‘Neil’. Trust me.” 

“Oh, but who are you?” Andrew asks, and it’s the question that has been plaguing him for a whole lot longer than he likes to admit. Who is Neil, really? Because no matter how any times Andrew takes the information he has and turns it and spins it into the other direction, no matter how many times he turns another page in the book, he doesn’t learn more. “Do you have a name?” 

“If you need one, call me Abram.” 

It sounds like the truth and Neil’s pulse doesn’t jump when he says it, but then again, skilled liars lie without their body reacting to it, they say lie after lie in the same tone others talk about the weather. “Should I believe that?” 

“I’m named after my father,” Neil says and then goes quiet for a moment. His hands on Andrew’s arms are warm, and the warmth slips through the dark material of it and leech onto his skin, slip under it and travel to his ribcage and tug and tug and tug. “Abram is my middle name; it’s the name my mother used when she was trying to protect me from his work.” Neil swallows. Sends a look over Andrew’s shoulder. “Ask Kevin if you don’t believe me. He would know.”

Andrew won’t, but he still says, “Maybe I will.” And he keeps his hand on Neil, keeps their skin connected to each other, and it should make Andrew itch, it should make him feel like a hot iron is pressed to his skin but it doesn’t and—

—and then, before Andrew can think more about it, Neil grabs one of Andrew’s hands, and drags it under the hem of his shirt and—

And Andrew’s hand makes contact with skin stretched over muscles, soft until it isn’t. There’s a jagged line here, the feeling of broken skin there, a raised line of skin, softer than the others, right by his thumb. It feels like a battlefield, like the surface of the moon looks like it would feel if you ran your fingers along it; bumpy and patchy. Andrew’s gaze drops to the shirt Neil is wearing, to the shirt that has to cover up scars like Andrew’s armbands do with his own. 

“Do you understand?” Neil asks him, and no, Andrew doesn’t understand at all because this is another piece of information, something else that he can’t seem to make sense of because it doesn’t fit in with anything else Neil has told him so far. “Nothing Riko does will make me leave him. We will both be here when you get back.” 

Andrew takes this comment, turns it a few times over in his hand. Feels his hand twitch where it’s connected to the scars on Neil’s abdomen. “Someone lied to me,” he says, not that it’s much of a surprise. “These ouches feel a little rough for a child on the run.” 

“The story I gave you was mostly true,” Neil says, his stomach moving with the next breath he takes. “I might have left out some critical details, but I know you’re not really surprised by that. If we survive this year and you’re still interested, you can ask me for them later.” Then, quiet, he says, “I think it’s your turn in our secrets game, anyway.” 

Andrew pulls his hand back from under Neil’s shirt and folds his arms, drums the fingers of the hand that feels like he had touched the hot stove with it on his biceps. 

No, Andrew really isn’t surprised that Neil had left out a few details, it’s not something he has never done before, but now that Neil has said it, now that he has confirmed it and presented in on a silver platter like this, Andrew can’t really say no, can he? So Maybe Neil has been on the run, maybe Neil has been through more than he had told Andrew, maybe Riko can scare him just fine but not enough for Neil to actually run away for good. 

Oh, Andrew knows he will regret this sooner rather than later. He will regret putting his trust into someone else and it will come back to bite him in the ass, because that’s what it always does, because he isn’t used to anything but. Amusement bubbles up inside of him at his own stupidity and he laughs as he walks back to Kevin to say, “It’ll have to do, won’t it?”

He looks away from Kevin, looks away from the decision he has made, the need to distance himself suddenly growing inside of him. A glance around the hallway shows his cousin nowhere, and Andrew takes this as his chance to get some breathing room. “Bee, I’ll see if Nicky is still breathing. Then we can go, right? The sooner we start, the sooner we can get this mess over with.” 

“You could wait for Aaron,” Mr. Waterhouse says as Andrew passes him on his way to Nicky’s bedroom. “I’m on my way to get him now.” 

“No time for that,” Andrew says and waves his hand before opening the door to Nicky’s room. He doesn’t want to see his brother right now, not after that conversation with Neil, not after thinking about the promise he made to Kevin, not after thinking about how this one will crumble like the one Aaron and he had made did when his dear brother broke it. “He can take a number and wait.” 

Nicky is sitting on his bed when Andrew enters, knees pulled up to his chest and arms around them. The curtains are pulled closed and there’s barely any light coming in but it’s enough for Andrew to be able to find his way to his side without tripping over anything. He reaches out and raps his knuckle against Nicky’s head. “Knock, knock! Nicky, Micky, picky,!” 

“Andrew?” Comes Nicky’s voice from somewhere below Andrew and then Nicky looks up, and his eyes are horribly swollen and look like he’s been crying. Or like he’s suddenly developed an allergy to authorities. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?” 

“Who’s there?” 

“What?” 

“Nicky.”

“Andrew?” 

“Hello!” Andrew says and waves his earlier knock knock joke aside. It’s clear that absolutely no one here appreciates them anyway. He takes a second to look at Nicky’s white shirt, to check for any injuries his cousin might have and nods when he doesn’t find any. “Just making sure you’re still breathing and all that before I go. You know, chest inflating and deflating and all that.”

“You’re going?” Nicky asks and then pulls himself up in a sitting position. “How did it go with Mr. Waterhouse? Is everything alright?”

Those are way too many questions that Andrew doesn’t actually feel like answering, so he nods and turns around to leave again. “Yes, yes, I’ll be back later, alright? Don’t be bad, you won’t get any Christmas presents.” Andrew turns around again when he’s at the door and says, “Let’s talk about all that other, less important stuff when I’m back, yes? Amazing.” 

He leaves again before Nicky can say, or ask, anything else and Wymack sends him a scowl when he sees Andrew return. “When you said you were going to see if he was bleeding I assumed you were going to take time to explain this to him.” 

“You know what they say about people who assume, Coach,” Andrew says with a grin as he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Or maybe Wymack doesn’t know, he’s old after all. “He’s not bleeding, so I told him I’d be back later and we could talk about it then. It’s technically the truth, yes?” He nods at Neil. “Let him deal with the fallout if Nicky doesn’t like it.” And then he’s done with this conversation, too bored to keep it going. “Bee, we’re going.” 

Wymack walks with them to the door and then says, “Andrew. Don’t leave me alone with these morons for too long. I’m getting too old to deal with their drama.” Which is kind of exactly what Andrew had been thinking, but he doesn’t say this. 

“Oh, you and me both,” Andrew says instead and takes another glance inside of the house as Bee grabs the doorknob in her hand. It’s cold outside despite the now clear sky and the sun shining and dyeing their surroundings into colors bright and even brighter when Andrew looks at them through the filter of his drugs that will be taken off. 

He takes a second to look down at his hand at that thought. At the hand that had been pressed to Neil’s skin a few minutes ago, and at the part of his skin that keeps shooting sparks alongside his body, and as the sound of the door closing reaches his ears, Andrew turns to follow Bee to her car and says goodbye to this side effect of his drugs for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone, i’m back again (for now)!
> 
> uhh.. i.. actually don’t have anything to say other than i hope you enjoyed this chapter despite what it was about. and i also hope you guys are doing well? :)
> 
> and as always, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments (i love reading those a lot)


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER INCLUDE:**
> 
> \- the first and biggest one is **Proust** in general,  
> \- followed by **mental and physical abuse** that isn’t descriptive but still very heavy,  
> \- **easthaven** as a whole,  
> \- and **withdrawals (including nausea).**
> 
> **BEFORE YOU READ:**
> 
> All Proust scenes are as non descriptive as possible — there are two short scenes with him in the room Andrew is staying in: one in which Andrew gets restrained and one where Proust tickles him. 
> 
> **Please, if you are not able to read this, then don’t. It is not worth to put your mental well-being on the line for this. Stay safe.**
> 
> I do a lot of time skips through the seven weeks of Andrew’s stay in Easthaven. I did not write the stay day-for-day for my own and everyone else’s well-being (including my beta readers and you guys). I hope you understand.
> 
> Again, if you cannot bear to read this: don’t.

The drive to Easthaven Hospital isn’t longer than a full hour, even after driving to Palmetto State University and picking up clothes for Andrew beforehand, and it looks like nothing Andrew has imagined in the short time in the car with Bee when they arrive.

It’s an old building, with dirty white paint that has cracks all over the facade and a fence that is free of barbed wire — logically, Andrew knew it wouldn’t have any, but it takes him a little by surprise and makes even more amusement than is already flowing through his body bubble up. 

The lobby, that they step into after walking through glass doors that chime when they open, is decorated with floral paintings that Andrew finds horribly disgusting and a fireplace facade is built into the wall farest from him. Fake flowers in white vases are on the table next to the dark red couches on the wall, and their colorful petals reflect the harsh light from above, they glint and sparkle, as Bee and Andrew pass them on their way to the front desk. 

It looks like whoever decorated the inside was going for something that is supposed to look like home, but all it does is come off like a catalogue showroom and Andrew is already bored of it. 

A man walks out of one of the doors behind the front desk, taller than Bee and middle aged with pepper and salt hair, and he introduces himself as Alan Slosky. He says he will be Andrew’s primary therapist during his stay, and Andrew grins at him. 

And Andrew grins and grins and grins and wonders how long it will take for him to get rid of this man, how long it will take for Slosky to run out of the room and lock the door behind him for good. 

Usually, Slosky explains as he leads Andrew and Bee down the hallway after shaking Bee’s hand and smiling patiently when Andrew just stares at it, they would go for slow tapering with Andrew and his medication, but considering the circumstances (he has a very, very funny frown on his face when he says this) they will do emergency tempering and start reducing his doses, make them small enough to get him through the withdrawals. Then, they will cut out dose after dose, starting with Andrew’s dose in the evening before he goes to sleep and similar to how Andrew had pushed and played with his dosage before playing an entire game. 

The room the doctor leads them to is neither big nor small; it’s roughly the size of the kitchen in Andrew’s dorm at Fox Tower, which isn’t that big but big enough that he can flop down onto the floor and stretch out like a starfish if he feels like it and still not bump into anything. 

Andrew thinks, as he looks at the white color of the wall, of the closet to the left of the door and parallel to the bed that’s high enough to be the same height as Andrew’s chest, to the small, small table and the singular wooden chair, that he might do exactly that to kill some time sooner rather than later. 

Slosky goes on to explain that Andrew can put his things into the closet, that he can get comfortable and inspect the room until dinner will be served, and then he leaves with Bee; and Bee gives him a smile, a small smile that looks like the first rays of the sun peaking out from behind dark, dark clouds in the spring, and then leaves. The door shuts behind them with a quiet click.

And then Andrew is alone. 

***

There is a girl on the same station as Andrew, her name is Kenna and she has long dark hair in a messy bun and wide brown eyes, and Andrew sees her for the first time at breakfast after his first night. 

The doctors already meddled with his dosage and reduced it, and they say it will still have the same effects but withdrawals will come faster, will come more regularly, until his body is used to the adjustment and they can cut more back. 

But he’s still flying high, high, sky high above the ground with his feet brushing the clouds and the white color on the walls and ceilings bright enough to rival the overhead lights and it’s enough that he says, “Do you think it will hurt if I stab you with this?” He holds up the white (everything in here is white, white, white, as if they’re in an actual hospital for real ouches) plastik fork next to his tray when Kenna asks him if she might sit next to him. “We can find out, if you want to! Don’t be shy!” 

Alan Slosky gives a faint shake of his head from behind the newspapers he’s holding, and Kenna sits down on Andrew’s right with a chair between them and _smiles_ at him and Andrew thinks that she might be insane. 

***

The withdrawals hit harder on his second day, his body aches and nausea crawls up his throat, slowly, slowly, slowly and has him swallowing again and again, even as energy builds up inside of him from his lowered dosage and has Andrew move up and down in his room like a caged animal. 

He walks up and down, and up and down and up and down, and feels like he’s on fire. Like someone had dipped him into a cup of gasoline and put him down next to a raging inferno. Usually, this wouldn’t be a problem for him, because as much as he loathes the sport Exy drains his overflowing energy as if Andrew’s a tub and someone pulls the plug, but he can’t play Exy here and he refuses to ask for something, anything, from the doctors who keep smiling and smiling at him. 

So after another round of walking up and down, he finds another solution. 

He lays down on his floor, and he really _can_ stretch out here like he suspected when he arrived, flips his little table upside down and starts bench pressing it. And swallows, and swallows and swallows, against the nausea sloshing back and forth inside his stomach. 

***

On Andrew’s third day, when the withdrawals from the reduction from his medication have worn off and he doesn’t feel like he’s burning from the inside out anymore, Alan Slosky introduces someone new to him just before dinner. 

Proust is his name, Slosky tells him with a small smile, and he’s part of the small team handpicked for Andrew. 

There’s some grey hair at Proust’s temples, nestled between the otherwise black hair, and his nose is too big, his skin too leathery, and he’s tall and slender. There’s a pinch to his thin lips, there’s an expression on his face, something knowing in his dark, dark eyes when he looks at Andrew that Andrew doesn’t think he likes at all. 

Andrew hates him instantly and flips his tray upside down a few minutes later.

***

They start leaving out his evening dose on his fourth day and it’s all good and manageable until it isn’t. 

Until Andrew reaches his fifth day and almost gets sick all over his breakfast. 

Kenna is there again, her hair in a complicated looking bun that looks more like a bird nest than anything else, and she talks and talks and talks, more than even Andrew does which is awfully amusing to him even when he feels nauseous and his stomach twists painfully.

“—my friends Bea, Dane and Mandy should be around here somewhere,” she says and Andrew looks up from his tray, looks up from the food he’s barely getting to stay down but that he knows he needs to function, because he really, really can’t remember asking. “We all have group therapy later. It’s really fun, and Martin, the group therapist, allows us to call him by his first name and he’s very, like, incredibly patient. Last week Mandy tripped and poured her water all over his shoes and he said it was okay, and that it reminds him of his dog because it keeps peeing over his pants and—” 

And then Proust comes closer, slithers over the floor like some kind of animal, and something inside of Andrew cracks when he leans down to say something to Kenna and cuts her off. 

The floor beneath the man is clean and white and shiny and dry, and the line of slime Andrew had honestly expected to be there isn’t. Kenna nods with a frown on her face when Proust leaves and follows him out of the room. 

Andrew doesn’t see her again after that. 

***

The time goes over slowly, ever so slowly, inside of Easthaven Hospital. 

It stretches and stretches and keeps stretching like a chewing gum half dried and Andrew counts the hours, counts the minutes and seconds since he got here and keeps lifting his table and lowers it, repeats it against the burn and the scream of his muscles. 

His smile and amusement dim, the colorful lenses get taken off the glasses he feels like he’s been looking through for three years, the radiant glow of everything around him dims and the erratic, excited pulls and pushes of the world disappear more and more during his first week. 

***

Then, after his first week and when he stumbles into the second and the third where his dosage gets shortened once more until another one gets taken away, things start to change. 

They start to fall over like domino pieces after one has been tipped over, they fall apart like a dry cookie does in someone’s hands, they crack here and crack there and Andrew feels like he’s driving in a car that has the tiniest of splits in the glass of the windshield. Like he’s driving down a bumpy road at a speed too high for how big the crack is. 

And then the wheels roll over a big bump, they make him shake and the car groan and there’s the sound of ice freezing and shattering apart as a big spider web of cracks takes the view from what is about to come.

***

Andrew wakes up in the middle of the night during his third week, his heart slamming against his ribcage, his pulse jumping loud enough that he can hear it in the silence of his room until the silence changes, and it gets less and less, and when his eyes adjust to the darkness, when he’s able to make out the furniture around him against the sick, sick feeling in his stomach, he sees a dark figure standing near the door. 

It’s tall, thrown into shadows and there’s the glint of teeth so incredibly bleached that Andrew is able to make them out in the darkness. 

And then it whispers, and it whispers names that Andrew knows. 

It whispers Jesse and Samuel and Steven and then there are hands around his throat, and Andrew recognizes the face staring down at him and there’s a wave of hard, raw, panic crashing over him that has him lashing out, that has him throwing out his hands to defend himself, to get Proust away from him. 

But before he makes contact, there’s pressure in his left arm and Andrew gets pulled into a different kind of darkness. 

***

Therapy sessions with Alan Slosky are mandatory and necessary for the doctor to see how Andrew progresses, and something inside of Andrew has been cracked, has been shattered as he had been pulled into the darkness in the middle of the night, and he talks like a loose cannon. 

And he talks and talks and talks because that’s what the doctor wants, isn’t it? 

And Slosky’s smile grows smaller and smaller, he stops nodding when Andrew talks, doesn’t react to Andrew cheerfully telling him to go and fuck himself and the frown that pulls his eyebrows together gets bigger. 

***

Week four turns out to be the worst one. 

Three of the dosages have been reduced and four completely taken off, and Andrew feels so, so sick that looking at food makes him even more nauseous and that he sweats so much during the improvised work out in his room that his tshirt and the floor beneath him are wet when he’s done. 

His muscles scream and his whole body hurts, the wall between himself and the outside world, the wall between himself and everyone else, gets thinner and thinner and everyone else gets quieter and quieter and Andrew feels worse and worse as it happens. 

It’s to be expected, considering how dependent he had been on his medication even if he hates it more than anything else, but the rattle of pills against the bottle Proust puts down on the table in front of him (with a smile so wide and malicious that Andrew wants to take the bottle and shove it down his throat) have Andrew clenching his teeth against the urge to take it, rip it open and swallow one of them. 

He takes his plastic spoon into one hand instead, imagines carving out Proust’s flesh as a droplet of sweat runs down the side of his face, and digs into his food. 

***

Proust comes into Andrew’s room again, three days after he put down the bottle of his meds on the table and watched. 

He doesn’t come alone this time, and doesn’t come during the night, but brings another doctor Andrew hasn’t seen before with him and taps something elastic and white against his palm. 

They fasten it around Andrew’s wrists and ankles before Andrew even has the chance to react, before he has the chance to try and fight back through the aching and twisting of his stomach. 

He’s still riding the coattails of his afternoon dosage, and it has him laughing and laughing and laughing until he’s breathless as the other doctor comes closer. 

“It’s for his own and everyone else’s best,” she says and presses her lips together as if she actually feels bad about it. Andrew wheezes out another laugh before he swallows against the sour feeling at the back of his throat that climbs higher and higher as he starts to feel cornered. “You’re currently a danger to yourself and us, dear.” 

And then she leaves as Andrew can’t do anything else but laugh more, and the door clicks shut behind her.  
Then Andrew is done, the amusement of the situation gone as if pulverized between his hands, and Andrew looks at Proust. 

“If you touch me,” he says, his voice so rough from laughing that it almost sparks more amusement inside of him, “I will kill you.” 

There’s nothing Andrew can do as Proust takes a step closer, his eyes knowing and knowing and knowing. 

Andrew can’t do anything but move and make the bindings pull tighter and tighter as Proust puts his hands on him and starts tickling him. 

***

Andrew makes a promise on an evening during week five, when he’s so sick that he feels like he’s dying instead of going through withdrawals and rehabilitation, when he’s laying on his bed with his wrists in the tight grips of the bindings. 

It’s not a promise to Alan Slosky, not to any of the other three doctors that keep trying to crack Andrew, not to the handful of other patients he sees now and then during dinner. 

No — Andrew promises, he swears, that he’s going to hunt down Proust and rip him apart slowly, molecule for molecule, like Andrew had warned him that he would if Proust put a hand on him. 

The bruises and bite marks that he can see on the ruined skin on his forearm from where his sleeves have been rolled up, the bruises and bite marks on the symbols of choice and survival that are now tainted forever and another thing to burn itself into Andrew’s mind (another thing to repeat like a broken record does again and again and again when it’s played) burn and burn and burn. 

***

Alan Slosky says that Andrew is making great progress one afternoon in week six. 

Andrew doesn’t answer him. He doesn’t even look at him. 

The trees outside on the muddy brown lawn are empty of their leaves and coated with a small layer of frost that twinkles in the light that hits it from inside. 

They will cut down the last pill, will take him off of it completely and see how he does in the following week before they decide if Andrew is fit to return home, to return to Palmetto State University. To see if Andrew’s fit to go back to the place that has been pulling at him, to see if Andrew’s fit to go back to the promises that keep whispering his name, that keep pulling at him. 

Slosky tells him then that Proust won’t be part of Andrew’s team anymore, that it’s not necessary for him to be there, and Andrew watches as a singular snowflake falls down from the thick blanket of clouds on the horizon and lands on the muddy ground where it melts and disappears again. 

***

In week seven, the darkness that has been locked away inside of him for three years, that has been a part of him for a very, very long time, comes back and lays herself over him like a warm blanket, like something that is almost like familiarity and home. His surroundings lose all their colors and glitter, they become dull and boring. The thoughts that have been bouncing around in his head and so, so loud still and become quiet until there’s only silence left.

In week seven, Alan Slosky smiles at him in a way that looks more like a grimace. He says that this is something that they do all the time, when the treatment is as good as done, and pulls down a familiar brown bottle that rattles with the movement of getting put down onto the table. Andrew looks at it, only for a heartbeat, and the urge to take it, the want and need to rip it open, is gone. He makes no move to grab it, but looks back at the broken, cracked piece of the wall behind the doctor and out of the corner of his eye he can see Alan Slosky smile and it looks genuine. 

In week seven, Andrew stops feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of this ( _this_ meaning andrew’s withdrawals) is based on my own experiences with withdrawals and getting taken off of medication and what it did to me — i know that not everyone’s experience is the same, but i wanted to say this before someone says this is bullshit. 
> 
> now. this is a very, very unpleasant chapter for multiple reasons and i’m very positive that i’ll upload the next chapter — which will be the first chapter leading into The King’s Men — in the next one to three days to wash the awfulness of this one away. 
> 
> i hope you’re all staying safe!
> 
> and, as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated!


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